Letters the state of the Stratford Canal

letters to the editor

In the 1960s David Hutchings handed over a reopened southern Stratford Canal which his successors continued to improve - has it been neglected since?

Hello again Martin I’ve just come off the Stratford on Avon cut after a mixed week aboard. Most of the weather was fine, the canal generally was in good fettle, the boat we hired was ‘good in parts’ as they say – but I have written to the hire company about that.

This is really a matter of enquiry. Have we members out there who have boated this canal in the relatively recent past? I last used it in 2009, and it wasn’t bad; this year it was awful. And no, I am not contradicting the first paragraph: what was so poor was the paddle gear.

When David Hutchings left the canal [following the restoration of the southern section under his leadership and 1964 reopening] to go on to the river Avon, he left behind a canal that worked, but only after a struggle because he was denied enough time to do the job properly. Over the years after that, the major problems were solved by support from the National Trust [who took over as navigation authority for the restored southern section of the canal] and voluntary labour, not forgetting the two Petes who were the permanent workforce – and very hard working they were. ‘Hutch’ used any paddle gear he could lay hands on, and the inbuilt problems that caused were worked out down the years. When I boated down 13 years ago the paddle gear and gates all worked. A few bits were less than great, but caused no real problems.

Last week, I only just managed to work some of the paddles. No doubt I am not as strong as I once was – you can’t get to 74 entirely in good nick after all. But apparently, the paddles haven’t made it through at all well, because most of the racks were knackered as were the pinions. It looks like the Canal & River Trust are worthy successors to BWB and reserve all the rubbish gear for this canal.

May I suggest we ask the Navvies readership about the Stratford cut? Have any of our friends been down there in the past couple of years, and how did you find it? Come to that, how are things all over the system? It is very annoying that the most easily maintained and easily replaceable parts of a lock should be ignored by regular maintenance.

It was most gratifying that the main things we did over the years to complete Hutchings’s work, that of providing working bywashes at each lock, were still working well. In fact, very gratifying as prior to our intervention most of them in the lower half of the cut did not work at all, and frequently delivered the bywash water to the nearest field. It is very worrying for an old crumbly like me to think that the beginning of that work by the London WRG (London and Home Counties Branch, IWA) now goes back 50 years ….. but I digress.

Just one more thing to mention. Lock 53, Maidenhead Road Lock, suffers from the road being widened which prevents the bottom gate having a conventional balance beam. I suspect the solution, still in use, is a Hutchings inheritance, where the balance beam is cut off completely, and a jury rigged arm is bent through 90 degrees in order to provide something to push/pull against. This solution entirely omitted the addition of a short but very heavy balance weight to support the gate from dragging on the bottom. I could only just move it, but could not shut the gate. I found that judicious work with the boat and lots of water worked, but I wonder about the average boat hirer who would probably be totally stumped.

Anyway, greetings from deepest Hampshire Mike Day

Over to you, readers: I confess that I haven’t boated the Stratford since 2014, when I found it basically OK - a little shallow in places for a 3ft draught former working boat, but so are various canals – and don’t recall us having any problems with the operability of the paddle gear. Have any of you with more recent experience found any problems? And over to you, CRT: any comments; any plans for improvements? ...Ed