Dig report Waveney finale As mentioned on the previous pages, this year’s camps got Geldeston’s first lock wall to the point where “a long weekend would probably do it...” River Waveney extra weekend The last few bricks at Geldeston
and Norfolk lanes, spotting a crinkle-crankle wall and the elusive remains of the former Waveney Valley Railway, saw us on site by 8.30am and laying bricks as the tide rose... Ah yes, the tide. As I mentioned, this is the limit of navigation on the Waveney, and that’s because that’s about as far as the tides flow, and the reason for building the lock (and two others further upstream) was to enable boats to get beyond there to Bungay. There’s no actual plan to restore this length to navigation (the other locks have
Martin Ludgate
As Ian reported in his camp report on the previous pages, this summer’s two weeks made some excellent progress with taking down and rebuilding the badley decayed south side lock chamber wall at Geldeston Lock (limit of navigation on Broadland’s River Waveney) following on from the success of the camps in 2017-19. But given the amount of brick-cutting needed (not to mention the odd misbehaving mixer) there just wasn’t quite enough time to complete the last section of the wall - although it was close enough that a long weekend would “probably do the job”. And so it was that I got the call from Dave ‘Evvo’ Evans to be a member of a small team (there wasn’t room for more than a handful of people to work on it at once) to complete the job over a Friday to Sunday working party in late September. Unfortunately the day job meant that I couldn’t join them until Friday evening, and by the time I met Evvo, John, Pete, ’Arry and Andy at the well-appointed Beccles Sea Cadet’s HQ (sorry TS I think!), they’d got on so well on the Friday that it looked like we might finish with a day to spare. An early start to avoid the Sea Cadets’ fundraising event, then drive through the Suffolk Nearing completion: the bricks on edge are added to form a coping
page 17
