Navvies 310

navvies volunteers restoring waterways

Spotlight on Montgomery and Derby canals

Canal Camps 2022 preview issue 310 december-january 2 0 2 1-22

STOP PRESS A letter to all WRG supporters from the WRG Board Dear All As you will read in this edition of Navvies, in November the WRG Board took the decision to not run our traditional Christmas Canal Camp this year.

The thinking behind this was based on two main reasons: firstly the Christmas Camp is traditionally seen as a social event with people coming from all over the country for variable periods of time. They both come from, and go back to, potentially complex social set-ups that are further complicated by the pressures of the Christmas season. Secondly, an essential principle in our Covid strategy over the summer had been (in line with Government guidance) to maintain adequate ventilation and spacing in the accommodation. Given the temperatures both on a typical winter site and in a typical winter accommodation the requirement to keep all doors and windows open was one that the WRG Board felt was unlikely to be upheld.

That decision is communicated on page 4 of this edition of Navvies. However, since Navvies went to press another, even more transmissible, variant of Covid has arrived and so the Board has had to take another tough decision: For the same reasons as given above, Waterway Recovery Group will not be running Canal Camps before the summer season of 2022.

Please note - this does not mean we will be doing nothing during this time. Indeed this edition of Navvies is full of stories of people who have managed to get out there and restore this country’s heritage, and crucially they managed to do it safely.

We are sure that this ‘ad-hoc’ situation will continue BUT having carefully analysed what makes a Canal Camp, we are sure it would be unfair to run events and activities this spring under the banner of Canal Camps.

STOP PRESS Over the years we have all worked hard to ensure that the Canal Camps ‘brand’ really does stand for something: things like levels of planning, quality of work, safety, work, numbers, bookings, catering, accommodation, that sort of thing.

It’s a decent set of standards that we all adhere to. Make no mistake: the Board understand and appreciate this. It’s not enough that we can come up with the rules; it only works because so many of you agree to stick to them. While you might think each and every Camp is different it is only because so many people work hard to keep so many aspects of the Camp as standard that they work so well.

Our investigations into how we can run events (see the Burslem Port report on page 16) has led us to conclude that, although we probably will be able to continue work, it would be wrong and misleading to pretend they qualify as ‘normal’ Canal Camps.

There is a positive to this ‘interruption to normal services’: while the actual work on the ground has suffered (and will continue to suffered), the hope we expressed when this pandemic started does seem to have come to pass: namely that all our colleagues in restoration societies have spent their ‘enforced downtime’ planning exciting and rewarding projects for us to join in on. This Navvies is packed full of details of some of them and we know of even more in the pipeline. Which is of course yet another reason to hold back for a while, until we are sure we can deliver our best.

There are some great projects out there, but it is not fair for anyone to commit to it unless they can be sure what they will bring to it.

As stated above, this does not mean that we won’t be running events during spring/summer; just that they will need to be different from our normal/traditional Canal Camps. Rest assured - Navvies has always existed to co-ordinate our activities. If we are doing anything soon then you will be able to read about it (and its bizarre but necessary extra rules) here.

The WRG Board

Martin Ludgate

Intro London WRG at work Setting up formwork at Tickners on the Wey & Arun

Alex Melson

Martin Ludgate

Martin Ludgate

The regional groups have been getting back into running weekend work parties recently.

See pages 34-37 and 43 to see more of what London WRG, Kescrg and WRG Forestry have been up to lately

Fixing leaks on the Buckingham Canal Building bridge abutment walls on the Wey & Arun Scrub bashing on the Buckingham

Tim Lewis

Tim Lewis

Creating a ‘bug hotel’ on the Buckingham

In this issue Contents For latest news on our activities visit our website wrg.org.uk See facebook group: WRG Follow us on Twitter: @wrg_navvies Production Editor: Martin Ludgate, 35 Silvester Road, East Dulwich London SE22 9PB 020-8693 3266 martin.ludgate@wrg.org.uk Subscriptions: WRG, Island House, Moor Road, Chesham HP5 1WA Printing and assembly: John Hawkins, 4 Links Way, Croxley Green WD3 3RQ 01923 448559 john.hawkins@wrg.org.uk Navvies is published by Waterway Recovery Group, Island House, Moor Rd., Chesham HP5 1WA and is available to all interested in promoting the restoration and conservation of inland waterways by voluntary effort in Great Britain. Articles may be reproduced in allied magazines provided that the source is acknowledged. WRG may not agree with opinions expressed in this magazine, but encourages publication as a matter of interest. Nothing printed may be construed as policy or an official announcement unless so stated - otherwise WRG and IWA accept no liability for any matter in this magazine.

Waterway Recovery Group is part of The Inland Waterways Association, (registered office: Island House, Moor Road, Chesham HP5 1WA), a non-profit distributing company limited by guarantee, registered in England no 612245, and registered as a charity no 212342. VAT registration no 342 0715 89.

Directors of WRG: Rick Barnes, John Baylis, George Eycott, Emma Greenall, Helen Gardner, John Hawkins, Dave Hearnden, Nigel Lee, Mike Palmer, George Rogers, Jonathan Smith, Harry Watts.

ISSN: 0953-6655

© 2021 WRG

PLEASE NOTE: subs renewal cheques MUST be made out to The Inland Waterways Association NOTE new subs address below Contents Acting Chairman’s Page Is it right to ask us to share supporter numbers with CRT? 4 Editor Is canal restoration booming?

5 Camps Preview looking forward to ’22 6-11 Restoration Feature Montgomery: how £15.4m will narrow the gap 12-15 Camp report Burslem Port 16-19 Letters the state of the waterways 20-21 Restoration Feature Derby Canal 22-25 Progress around the system 26-33 Group report Kescrg are back!

34-36 Group report ...and so are London WRG 37 Bookshop Auction of canal books 38-39 Heritage IWA’s new campaign 40-41 Navvies News Save your stamps!

42-43

Contributions... ...are welcome, whether by email or post.

Photos welcome: digital (as email attachments, or if you have a lot of large files please send them on CD / DVD or contact the editor first), or old-school slides / prints.

Contributions by post to the editor Martin Ludgate, 35, Silvester Road, London SE22 9PB, or by email to martin.ludgate@wrg.org.uk.

Press date for issue 311: 10 January.

Subscriptions A year's subscription (6 issues) is a minimum of £3.00 (cheques to The Inland Waterways Association) to WRG, Island House, Moor Road, Chesham HP5 1WA. Please add a donation if you can.

Cover pics Front: Wendover Canal Trust volunteers celebrate a milestone in their programme to rebuild the the dry section from Tringford to Buckland: completion and rewatering of the next length from Bridge 4A to Bridge 4 (picture by Wendover Canal Trust). Back cover: Navigable here by 2024? The Montgomery near Carreghofa - see page 12 (Martin Ludgate)

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comment Acting Chairman Standing in for Chairman Mike Palmer, Jonathan Smith looks forward to 2022’s Canal Camps while cautioning us “not to try to predict too much” Acting Chairman’s Comment Last time I said I hoped I had written my last Acting Chairman’s comment and yet here I am (slightly unexpectedly) for a third time. The good news is that Mike Palmer is making excellent progress, he is shortly due to return to work and has already picked up the reins on various matters within our parent body the Inland Waterways Association, primarily related to the Restoration Hub and its High Level Panel.

The WRG Board decided that given this workload it made sense for me to continue in my role of Acting Chairman. The great learning point from this, and from the last eighteen months, has been not to try and predict too much into the future.

On that note we have taken the difficult decision not to hold any Christmas Canal Camps this year – the view of the Covid Working Group (to whom I must express my sincere thanks for all their efforts in coming up with proposals to allow some work camp to operate) was that the unique nature of the Christmas Camps, combined with the increased socialising in the festive period, meant that finding safe accommodation was impractical – a view that was wholeheartedly endorsed by the WRG Committee and Board.

We are still working on the programme of Canal Camps for 2022, indeed you will read more about our initial thoughts and hopes elsewhere in Navvies, but as always it is difficult to be certain of what the future will bring in terms of restrictions and safe practices. I think we all know of people still succumbing to Covid even now, and our thoughts and prayers are with the families of two IWA stalwarts given the recent sad news of Derek Wallace and Jerry Sanders.

At the moment we don’t know if the traditional BCN clean-up weekend with accommodation will be able to go ahead, or whether we will have a different style of clean-up. Certainly, the Burslem Port Canal Camp was run a little differently: held over four days with a slightly different structure to usual. However, it was very successful and laid around 60m of footpath.

So, it may well be that our working practices in 2022 will be slightly different to those we have traditionally followed, it’s just too soon to know.

Talking of not being able to predict the future, I am sure that some of you will have started to come across the Canal & River Trust’s Affiliation Charter which the Trust has just started to promote “to demonstrate to Government and the nation that we share the same belief in the importance, value and benefit of these important inland waterways now and for the future”. Who would have thought that British Waterways, morphing into CRT, would be asking various societies, trust and groups to “share supporter numbers” so they can be counted as “supporters of the (Canal & River) Trust”.

While I can appreciate their desire to demonstrate to Government the support canals and waterways have, I’m not convinced such a naked attempt to include supporters of other organisations is either correct, proper or indeed will even be accurate! How many of us are members of more than one canal or restoration society? I suspect this charter will be the subject of much discussion over the festive period!

Talking of which reminds me to wish everyone the very best of Christmases, and the happiest of New Years!

Jonathan Smith

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Editorial Bright future?

Is more being spent on restoration than any time since the Millennium?

Editorial Over the last 21 months, since normal WRG life (and normal life of any kind) was interrupted by the pandemic, you may have noticed that I’ve got into the habit of liberally sprinkling my editorials with expressions like “As we go to press...” and “The situation could change...” not to mention the odd reference to the possibility that Covid-19 could “turn round and bite us on the arse” if we start behaving like it’s going away. And sure enough, this time there are another couple of cases where ‘the situation’ did indeed change, and we’re into avoiding collecting teethmarks on the collective WRG arse. As Jonathan’s already mentioned in the Acting Chairman’s Column, we won’t be running a New Year Camp this time; more recently with the uncertainty surrounding the emergence of the new variant not long before we went to press, the London WRG and Kescrg Christmas joint dig and party has also bitten the dust.

However having got that out of the way, we can look a little futher into the future with some optimism. And with the usual disclaimers, we are going ahead with planning (albeit a couple of months later than usual, in the hope of a little more certainty) for what sounds like a really good summer of canal camps including some new sites. The Canal Camps Booklet with full details will (hopefully) appear in the next Navvies; in the meantime we’ve got a ‘pre-preview’ to give you all the advance information available as we go to press - See page 6.

But it’s when we come to look at the slightly longer term future that we can be really optimistic. Although to start with, I’m going to look a couple of decades back into the past...

I remember the sheer euphoria of being a waterways enthusiast around the turn of the Millennium and shortly afterwards. The arrival of the National Lottery, with its Millennium Fund aimed at landmark projects that could be completed by around 2002, fitted perfectly with the situation that several waterways schemes found themselves. And sure enough three tricky and expensive restorations - the Rochdale, Huddersfield, and Scottish Lowland Canals (Union and Forth & Clyde) - were completed, along with a brand new waterway (the Ribble Link) that many would have been sceptical about. And then I remember the slight disillusionment that followed, as the promised “Tranche Two” of restoration schemes which would follow on after the completion of the initial ones failed to materialise.

Yes, there were a lot of bright spots - the funding to complete the Droitwich, the first phase of the Cotswold, reopenings such as at Aston, Bugsworth, Tring, Froghall and Salford, and a huge number of number smaller, more local success stories. But just not quite the way things had really happened when there had been some tens of millions going into opening up canals. My fellow enthusiasts started to talk of restoration “in a long-term decline”, of us not seeing any more reopenings for a decade or more, and other such gloom and doom.

But consider where we’re at now. On pages 12-15 you can read about how a £15.4m Levelling Up Fund package will see a big step towards linking up the restored lengths of the Montgomery into a 27 mile navigable waterway. Meanwhile on the Chesterfield the Towns Fund is (subject to final confirmation) contributing 50% of an £11m package to restore the rest of the canal in Chesterfield Borough. And on the Cotswold Canals the £16m Lotterysupported package which will complete the Phase 1b (Saul to Stonehouse) link and open up 10 miles of waterway is getting properly under way, with the Bristol-Birmingham main line railway being dug up for a new canal bridge just as we go to press. And if we can allow ourselves to cross the Irish Sea, the Republic of Ireland Government has provided to •12m for the Ulster Canal, and committed to eventually reopening the entire section that’s in the Republic - it just needs somebody to fund the half of it that’s in Northern Ireland.

So remember these if you’re afflicted with doom and gloom. And remember that they all - even the Ulster - began with volunteer work, and WRG support.

Martin Ludgate

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comingsoon...Camps 2022 In Navvies 311 we plan to include a booklet with the 2022 Canal Camps programme. But here’s an exclusive preview of where we’re likely to go...

Canal Camps 2022: the (likely) sites As you may have read in Jonathan’s Acting Chairman’s Column, as this issue goes to press we’re still working on our programme of week-long Canal Camps for 2022. We’re running approximately two months later than usual with the planning: in the light of the last two years’ experience it makes sense to try to give ourselves a little bit more certainty of what will happen by the time we go public with a full schedule of dates and sites. So the plan is now that the Canal Camps Brochure which usually gets posted out with this issue of Navvies will instead come out with the next issue in late February.

But we know that lots of you will be eager to hear about which sites we’re planning to run Canal Camps on in the coming summer - especially given that you’ve been starved of any Camps action for much of the last two years. So - with the usual disclaimers that nothing is decided, and that nobody knows what horrors the next twist in the Covid-19 story might inflict on us all - here is our preview of the eight sites which right now are looking odds-on to feature in the programme for 2022, plus several more which we hope might make it.

Monmouthshire & Brecon Canals The site: Ty-Coch Locks, near Cwmbran The work: the overflow bywash weir at one of the flight of Ty-Coch Locks (where a great deal of restoration work has already been done) has developed a void. We need to dismantle the weir apron, fill the hole, and then carefully rebuild it - all in stone and traditional lime mortar.

There’s also a second job, installing stop planks at two of the restored locks and repainting the lock gates. And there’s another possible project to build a slipway at Five Locks nearby.

The Bywash with holes in...

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...and the locks under restoration

Wilts & Berks Canal The site: Steppingstones Bridge, near Shrivenham The work: The bridge was rebuilt from a completely derelict and collapsed state some years ago. More recently London WRG returned (pictured) to add the parapet coping stones. That left just one main job still to be done to complete the restoration: rebuilding the wing walls - and that’s our job.

Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation The site: Stonham’s Lock and Weir The work: this is ‘our own’ waterway - WRG’s parent body the Inland Waterways Association is the navigation authority on the Chelmer. So we get to do maintenance and refurbishment work on a working waterway, in this case on a weir and lock and their associated wing walls where the brickwork has decayed.

It needs the copings taking off, the top courses of brick taking down and rebuilding, and the copings reinstating.

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Lichfield Canal The site: Fosseway Heath, Lichfield The work: The chamber of Lock 18 near Fosseway Lane was restored some years ago. More recently a long section of canal channel wall has been rebuilt below the lock, and this is now being extended at the far end by Lichfield & Hatherton Canals Restoration Trust’s volunteers who are creating a canal diversion on a brand new route around Lichfield. Our job now is to extend the length above the lock, by rebuilding a canal bank retaining wall in concrete blocks faced with brickwork.

There’s a wall in there somewhere!

Here’s one we did on the 2018 camp

Maidenhead Waterways The site: Town Moor, Maidenhead The work: The Maidenhead Waterways are a set of connected Thames backwaters and flood relief channels, some of which were once navigable. The aim is to eventually open them to visiting boats from the Thames via a channel called The Cut linking to the river at Bray; however in the meantime it’s hoped to open them up to local boating in smaller craft - and our work is to create a slipway and landing stage for this. We’ll be putting in timber edging, damming and excavating the site, filling it and then comSite for the new Maidenhead Waterways slipway pacting it.

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Swansea Canal The site: Trebanos or Ynysmeudwy Locks, or Clydach The work: The plan is to carry on the restoration of Trebanos Lower Lock, including clearing large fallen coping stones from the bottom of the lock chamber, plus removal of vegetation and re-pointing the stonework of the lock walls.

There may be alternative work available at Ynysmeudwy, digging out the buried length of canal at Clydach, or blockwork on the walls of a new slipway at Clydach.

Trebanos Locks await our attention

Lapal Canal The site: Selly Oak Park, Birmingham The work: Building the brick-faced canal towpath wall up to full height where the canal passes through Selly Oak Park, and building a new path connecting the towpath to a bridge over thecanal in the park.

Length of towpath to be built up

Site for new path up to bridge

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Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal The site: Malswick The work: Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal Trust has just got planning permission to reinstate 600 metres of filled-in canal at a new worksite at Malswick. We will be carrying out channel excavation, plus using ‘cut and fill’ methods using the spoil to build up a length of canal embankment, and extending a 1.8m diameter culvert where the canal crossed over a stream. We hope to include a training element on this camp.

Turn this back into a canal...

...and extend this stream culvert

And anywhere else?

The eight sites we’ve just described are the ‘front runners’ as we go to press. We’re still in the process of planning our programme, and these appear (with the usual disclaimers regarding Covid-19 etc) to be the most likely to go ahead. But that doesn’t mean we’ve given up on running any others. Some possibilities include: The Wey & Arun Canal: it won’t surprise you to learn that any camps on the Wey & Arun Canal will be likely to be connected with the current project to reinstate the missing road crossing at Tickner’s Heath as mentioned in London WRG and Kescrg’s group reports in this issue.

Watch this space!

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The Shrewsbury & Newport Canals: There’s a possibility of a camp near the Shrewsbury end of the route, in the Berwick Tunnel area, with a proposal involving restoration work on the tunnel portal itself and/ or the ‘donkey shelter’ (otherwise known as the ‘lengthman’s hut’) which was built into the tunnel entrance but is in a state of dereliction and collapse. Again, we’ll keep you informed.

The Buckingham Canal: The Buckingham Canal Society would like to run a ‘green camp’ doing some tree-planting along the route of the canal, but whether it can happen depends on things like the result of an application for funding to buy the trees. This could be a real ‘camp with a difference’ if it happens.

Shrewsbury Newport: Berwick Tunnel and (below) remains of hut

The Montgomery Canal: The rebuilding of School House Bridge (see our Montgomery feature on the following pages) is scheduled to take place during 2022 and there’s a possibility that WRG Canal Camps will be involved, possibly towards the start of the project. Again, we’ll keep you informed.

The Wendover Canal: And finally, we hope to run a weekend Family Camp on the Wendover this year.

And what else?

As we’ve shown elsewhere in this issue, the regional mobile groups have been getting going again, so if you don’t fancy a whole week’s camp there will (fingers crossed) be plenty of weekend working parties where you will be welcome. We hope to reinstate the Navvies Diary sometime in the next couple of issues, as and when the groups reach the point where they can be confident far enough ahead that they will take place. In the meantime see their websites or Facebook groups.

And finally, don’t forget the local canal societies and trusts, who as ever will welcome day visitors on their regular working parties - you can see from our lengthy Progress section in this issue how much they’re achieving.

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Restoration feature As the Mont restoration gets awarded £15.4m, we look at what it will pay for, But it’s still extremely important - not only will it pay for a significant proportion of The good news on the Montgomery Canal is the work to open up the ‘missing link’; there that the Government’s Levelling Up Fund has are other plans in place for most of the rest awarded £15.4m to the Montgomery Canal. of the work. A bid to Welsh heritage body It will be spent on removing serious blockCADW will - if successful - restore the Vyrnwy Aqueduct. An earlier bid to the Mid ages where roads currently cross the canal on low embankments, as well as other works Wales Growth Fund (originally for £25m), including a large amount of dredging and the which might have funded the entire cost of provision of offline nature reserves as mitiga- the Llanymynech to Arddleen length, has tion measures for when the canal (much of been scaled back to just cover the Arddleen which has protected status) reopens to boats and Maerdy road crossings - and this reduction in size has probably made it more likely - all on a strategically important section of the canal from Llanymynech to Ardleen, just to be approved. The School House Bridge a few miles north of Welshpool. rebuild is going ahead in 2022, while the Shropshire Union Canal Society volunteers So why is it stategic? Well, up to now the reopening of restored lengths of the have almost complete work to rebuild and canal has concentrated on two parts. Firstly, line the dry channel from Gronwen to Crickstarting at Frankton, the junction at the heath. Find a way of getting the last two English end where it leaves the Llangollen miles of dry canal from Crickheath to Canal, and working south westwards through Llanymynech rebuilt and rewatered, and that Aston Locks and Maesbury to Gronwen could be the key to getting the whole of the Bridge, seven miles from Frankton and the Montgomery ‘missing link’ open. limit of navigation since the last opening in To help explain how all these different 2003. And secondly, an isolated length, parts of the Montgomery reopening jigsaw starting in Welshpool (where the Big Dig in go together, we’ve put together the illus1969 helped kick things off) and working out trated maps opposite and on the following on both directions, to create the current 12pages. And in the meantime we’ll hopefully mile restored length from Ardleen to Refail. see some of you working on the work site at Linking these two together by opening the School House Bridge before long. eight-mile ‘missing link’ from Gronwen to Martin Ludgate Arddleen is clearly a major objective as it would create a 27-mile continuous navigable Walls Bridge length accessible from the national waterways network.

So will the new grant enable that to happen? Not quite. There are costs that it doesn’t cover: Arddleen and Maerdy bridges (because they would push the project beyond the maximum grant size and 2024 timescale limit for Levelling Up Fund bids); the Vyrnwy Aqueduct (also excluded on cost); School House Bridge (already being funded by the Montgomery Waterway Restoration Trust appeal); and other work on the Low level road crossing to be replaced with English side of the border (the grants are new bridge on new site including road and based on local authority and parliamentary canal diversions, using recently announced constituency areas - this one is for £15.4m Government funding grant.

Montgomeryshire.

Montgomery Canal: closing the gap

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Montgomery missing link and what’s still left to do to get the canal reopened through to Welshpool

Gronwen to Crickheath length

Aston Locks

Restoration of final section by Shropshire Union Canal Society nearing completion

Restored largely by WRG and reopened 2003. Navigable from Llangollen Canal at Frankton to Gronwen Bridge

School House Bridge

To Frankton Queen’s Head

Maesbury

Missing bridge scheduled for rebuilding with major volunteer input (including WRG) in 2022.

Last blockage on English length

Gronwen Bridge: current limit of navigation Redwith

‘Pant Dry Section’: Crickheath-Llanymynech

Crickheath

Pant

Llanymynech length

Not currently funded. Channel dry, heavily overgrown in places, will need significant re-lining work

Llanymynech Continued on next page

Restored, tripboat in operation

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Careghofa Locks

Restored to fully navigable standard in 1980s by SUCS volunteers Vyrnwy Aqueduct

Bid submitted to Welsh heritage body CADW for restoration funding grant Welshpool - and beyond...

Arddleen to Welshpool length

Restored and theoretically navigable but needs some heavy maintenance in places Restored and navigable through the town and for a further six miles to Refail. Some restoration work completed beyond Refail including three locks restored mainly by SUCS volunteers. Final length to Newtown infilled, water pipe laid in bed and terminal basin built on. New terminus proposed.

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Welshpool

To Newtown

Welshpool Town Lock

Continued on previous page

Williams Bridge

Vyrnwy Aqueduct

Four Crosses

Demolished in 1970s and replaced with low level road crossing. New bridge to be built (on new alignment - original was a hump-backed bridge on a canal embankment) using recent £15.4m funding grant Arddleen

Llanymynech to Arddleen length

Burgedin Locks Wern

Bank Lock Cabin Lock Pool Quay Lock

Channel and structure repair, dredging and clearance work plus creation of offline nature reserves to be carried out using recent £15.4m funding grant

Crowther Lock Arddleen Bridge

Maerdy Bridge

Navigable culvert incorporated in new road bridge but at level 6ft below current canal level. Will need new lock(s). Bid submitted to Mid Wales Growth Deal Fund for this and Maerdy Bridge

Canal culverted under low level main road crossing. New bridge will need realignment of canal.

Bid submitted to Mid Wales Growth Deal Fund for this and Arddleen Bridge

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camp report Burslem Port First WRG Canal Camp at Burslem Port: a three-day mini-camp creating a towpath on this restoration project in the Staffordshire Potteries Burslem Port Mini-Canal Camp

in one corner poking a box on the wall with an umbrella and explained that it was the switch for the outside lights. She wasn’t sure if one or two taps were required to turn the outside lights ‘on’, ‘off’, or ‘on timed’ and we wouldn’t find out until 10pm. If the lights were still on they were on, but if they went

As described in the last issue of Navvies, the plan was that the camp would be laying a towpath along the line of the Burslem Arm of the Severn Trent Canal as part of the Footprint project funded by Stoke city council.

Ask yourself the question “Does Murphy’s Law apply to canal camps?” The Length: 1/2 mile Locks: none Date closed: 1963 answer is a definite The Canal Camp project: YES. Creating a section of towpath along the Mikk went to Trent & Mersey Canal’s Burslem Arm. Tom’s to collect the van and trailer then Why? As part of a plan to open up a path travel to Stoke-onalong the route, in advance of rebuilding Trent where he had and reopening the canal. arranged to meet Roger (the local contact The wider picture: Since the Arm was from Burslem Port Trust) closed in the early 1960s as a result of a between 4pm and 5pm. breach, much of the industry on the The trouble started when he banks of the canal and in the surrounding didn’t get to Tom’s until 3pm part of the Staffordshire Potteries conurand Roger was asking where he bation has closed down, buildings have was. Then after transferring food been demolished, and the whole area is in and personal kit, including his need of regeneration. The Burslem Port bike, from car to van, struggling Project was conceived 20 years ago as a with the wheel clamp on the trailer vision of how that could be achieved with and getting it stowed away and a restored canal arm as a centrepiece. hitching the trailer to the van... would With regeneration work getting under believe it? The van had a flat battery! way in recent years, now is the time to Phone calls and texts followed, then car push for the canal to be restored. movements, finding the hidden battery on Re-creating the towpath opens up the the van and connecting the jump leads, the route and helps make the case for it. van was started. During this process he had a phone call about a bulk waste collection at home that was dealt with. The van eventually rolled away from Tom’s at 4pm. Roger had been informed. Camp volunteers were due to arrive at the accommodation at 6pm, estimated time of arrival of van and trailer was 6.30pm.

To find out (and Van and trailer were manoeuvred into more about the Uttoxeter position in the car park ready for unloading, Burslem Port one day) while Mikk and Roger went to meet the hall project see our steward. The hall was a church community hub; on arrival in the hall, the Reverend was feature in issue 309

fact file Burslem Port

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off at 10pm they were timed...

Catering kit was unloaded while the tour of the hall was being conducted, then Roger gave the volunteers a talk about the history of the Burslem Arm. After that the still frozen curry was heated up and a wellearned ‘beer o’clock’ was announced.

After the curry dinner, David got to grips with the industrial dishwasher in the kitchen and mastered the controls which were only partly covered by the instructions.

Then came more bad news: last orders at the pub next door was 10pm. Mikk and Raking out the ground ready to start building the path Sam ventured out to get some supplies and were just in time. The health and went off for the digger and power wheelbarsafety briefing followed their return and row to sort that out. eventually lights were put out at 11.35pm.

A calamity arose, when it was realised The arrival of the van and trailer on site that with only one key in and out of the the next day was greeted by Roger, Nick and accommodation, Mike and Jude Palmer were Joe (Naturescaping contractors) and Jenny stuck outside at Newchapel, and wouldn’t be Morris from our Head Office. The site inspec- able to prep the week’s food! It was also tion included further historical notes from apparent that vital supplies of tea and coffee Roger before kit was unloaded and work were missing from the brew kit. Luckily could begin. The new version of ‘Alex from Jonathan was sent with the key from site, Head Office’, Jonathan Green, arrived late and to pick up the supplies, two birds one after getting caught up in traffic. The constone, and no going hungry later in the tractor had been on site all week and had evening. stripped the topsoil off the route for the Lunchtime was an opportunity for path, and that was when the first problem Jonathan to get to know the rest of the occurred: the line of the path on one section group and a ‘round robin’ of “what’s your was wrong, and would need to be adjusted name and give me an interesting fact about and agreed. yourself” followed. This was easier for some Meanwhile the volunteers were split than others. Nick was in a band called Oasis, into two groups to start working on the Malcolm had spent 15 years on a motorcycle towpath from each end. It became apparent and Callum is studying archaeology, but that the mini digger would be needed to couldn’t remember finding anything... ‘smooth out’ a high point and Paul and Sam During the excavation Sam managed to

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throw a track off the excavator, so a lot of time was spent getting that sorted out.

Meanwhile all volunteers were working on the same section trimming the path edges and getting the edging timbers fixed in place, completing 32 metres of path by the end of the day.

The showers were at Port Vale Football Club. Separate ladies’ and men’s. Only two people at a time could use the showers. Jen and Charlotte were fine, but 10 men would take a while. Once everybody was clean we headed back to the hall where Mike and Jude had been preparing the evening meal and the food for the rest of the camp. After an excellent dinner Mike gave a welcoming speech and pointed out that Roger had been to see him and let him know that seeing the work being done had made an old man very happy. The caterers were presented with a bunch of flowers and bottle of wine in thanks for their effort.

Day One ended with a trip for some to the pub (Nick didn’t fancy the Sticky Toffee beer that Jen had brought back from the supermarket). At the end of the evening Mikk persuaded the landlady to save beer bottle tops for his floor and she promised to post them to him regularly. A good day all round.

Thursday saw Mikk being given some trailer training and reversing down Luke Street in a very sinuous fashion due partly to his skill (or lack of it), and partly to the fact that instructor Paul didn’t know his left from right.

Having rumblings around the group of potentially problematic weather leading toward the weekend, there was a sense of desire to have as productive of a day as possible on Thursday, and what a Day Two it turned out to be. All the focus was put on getting the section of path leading to the bridge in a good state, and able to potentially take the worst of the coming weather. For the first hours of the day, the team was split between extending the path edging at one end, so Loading that we’d roughly covered 50m

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or so, and the other end raking, clearing and levelling so that the first stages of Terram could be rolled out. By the first tea break, and a much needed brew, it became clear just how much we’d done in a short space of time.

What came next however, was a taste of what much of the day would encompass; Wheelbarrow mania. Going back and forth up and down the short muddy slope and crude ramp, from the digger and pile of sand, to the end of the intended path, many many times. Particular credit goes to Jen, Charlotte and Ross, if there was a competition for most barrows shifted, they were certainly winning it! Working equally hard to keep the system going like a conveyor belt, Malcolm and Nick were flattening out the deposited sand, and Callum and Martin were keeping the work on the path edging going, so that we were almost up to the first in-

surfacing material into the powered barrow

cline, around 15m or so short from where the path meets the edge of the old concrete Canal edge. Paul and David took turns operating the digger, and Sam operated the Powered Wheelbarrow, every load a welcome sight, as it could do the work of at least eight Wheelbarrows trips.

By Lunch we’d made amazing progress, and Callum had eaten as many custard creams as possible, but we were greeted by a look of bemusement from Nick, Joe and Paul, because of a spanner in the works. The aggregate we’d received for packing the top of the path wasn’t the ideal type (that’s putting it mildly…), and while eventually it was arranged that we’d receive the correct type, we still had to shift and find a home for material. Everyone worked their socks off, and put in a tremendous afternoon shift. By the end of the day, we’d covered 30-40m of track in sand, finished even more of the

Starting to look like a path

edging and had accomplished an enormous amount that would give Friday the best chance of success, even if the rain hit hard.

By the end of the evening we’d said goodbye to Jen who’d put in a massive shift, so that she could be home on Friday. We’d also lost Mikk at Lunch time, who would be back on Saturday, so we were two team members down. That evening, everyone enjoyed Mike & Jude’s cooking, a massive Cottage Pie; not a trace of it was left over. Everyone was absolutely knackered so spent the evening in, swapping stories and what felt like having a cross-table competition to finish several crosswords.

Friday morning, and despite torrential rain overnight, there were only slight wisps of showers left behind, and the site was not too waterlogged. It likely wouldn’t stay that way though, so Paul made the call that it would be best to try and finish the section entirely that we’d been working on mostly so far, so that it could take any potential downpours. And much to Paul’s delight, the right aggregate had arrived. And so commenced a long day in wellies and boots shifting enormous amounts of stone down onto the path below, all while having one eye on the clouds above.

Despite a few short bursts, we were very lucky to remain largely dry all day, and by the end of the day, with a hell of lot of good teamwork and effort, the entire section from the bridge to the old canal edge, roughly 80+ metres was completed, covered with stone and packed down. A tremendous effort for just three days.

Saturday arrived and so did the rain, in torrents. So the kit and surplus food was packed into van and trailer and various private vehicles. The happy volunteers parted ways at the end of the camp, having completed the first section of the Burslem Port towpath to the delight of Roger. The remaining towpath will be done by Naturescaping’s Nick and Joe. Mikk Bradley Jonathan Green

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Letters Burslem... and CRT...

A post-Camp update on the Burslem, and an appeal for help. And is the navigable network getting in a bad way, or mainly no worse than normal?

On the Burslem Port Project Hi Martin Well, it happened although not quite as envisaged. Due to matters beyond our control, our contractors had to delay starting the path, so WRG had the privilege of laying the first third of the path themselves. And that had to be a mini camp for three full days, due to a shortage of available leaders.

Thanks to Jenny, Mikk and Paul for sharing the load. In those three days, edge boards were erected along the former canal bed as far as the warehouse, sand, a membrane and chipped stone were all laid, a fantastic achievement in a short time [See Camp Report, page 10].

We are just waiting for the top coat of road planings to complete the job, which is happening in the last 2 weeks of November.

Our contractors expect to complete the whole path by then.

Just a couple of comments on your piece in Navvies 309. You mention the figure of £58 million - this is deceptive as it included land acquisition for all the surrounding houses. The waterway reinstatement figure was less than £6 million, as estimated in the Engineering Study carried out by AECOM in 2011. And the project has always been jointly funded by our local IWA Branch and the Trent & Mersey Canal society - so they deserve a mention.

And now for an appeal. The Trust has recently lost two valuable - and younger - trustees, leaving two thirds of our trustees in their eighties. We badly need someone with a WRG background to help us move forward.

With our meetings now conducted via Zoom, living in the locality is not essential. So I am appealing to Navvies’ readership to step up.

We are on the cusp of exciting developments.

I can be reached on roger.st21@gmail.com. I look forward to a full inbox!

Roger Savage Chairman, Burslem Port Trust Thanks for the corrections. ...The Editor

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On the state of maintenance of the waterways system (again)...

In issue308 we published a letter from Mike Day, who was involved in the earliest days of WRG, and who had returned to the Stratford Canal (reopened pre-WRG in 1964, but subject to a lot of maintenance / improvement from WRG and other volunteers in the years when it was run by the National Trust on a limited budget) for a boat holiday recently.

He reported that the canal was generally OK but the paddle gear in particular was in poor condition - “most of the racks were knackered as were the pinions”, surmised that “it looks like the Canal & River Trust are worthy successors to British Waterways Board and reserve all the rubbish gear for this canal” - and asked if any boating readers cared to comment on their experiences of the state of the Stratford - or indeed the waterway system in general.

Last time we printed a reply from Alan Hodson reporting various aspects of waterways maintenance of the Yorkshire waterways that were sub-standard and concluding CRT was ”clearly not fit for purpose”. Here’s another view of the state of the system...

Dear Martin Like you we have not boated the Stratford this year but have probably got near to our average mileages. Starting from our base at Langley Mill we did the Leicester Ring in May/June and travelled over to the Middlewich Branch via the Shroppie in August returning the same way in October with the addition of a run up the Llangollen to Frankton and down the Mont. The main observations were excess vegetation growth mainly offside especially on the Mont and southern Shroppie plus ground paddle failures at 25% of the northern Staffs & Worcs locks.

Otherwise much the same from an operational point of view as previously, but with vegetation out of control in many areas and almost every lock and lift bridge in need

of repainting, the system looked neglected. My understanding is that CRT furloughed most of their canal bank staff (big mistake?) at the start of the pandemic which restricted their ability to keep up with essential maintenance. Individual paddle failures were not attended to if navigation was still possible and staff were busy elsewhere.

In my East Midlands area a plea to the Erewash Canal Preservation & Development Association for help from the local Customer Service Manager resulted in the Friday work party team changing paddle boards, repairing spear Also useful for vegetation clearance: ECPDA workboat ‘Pentland’ rods, replacing windlass/ spindle posts and much more besides to restored a CRT work boat for use on off-side keep the Erewash Canal fully navigable. vegetation clearance work but were subseOther CRT volunteers have also been quently told the work had to be done by busy painting lock gates and picking litter outside contractors. We are now in talks etc. In fact CRT staff in our area have in with CRT about using Pentland our work recent weeks resumed repairing failed padboat to assist the Erewash Towpath Action dles even where other paddles remained in Team - the ‘Thursday Gang’ - with some of operation. For instance at Potters Lock on this work. Yes, there are two teams of volthe Erewash they recently extracted a unteers helping to keep the Erewash Canal ground paddle board and put everything clean, smart and operational. back together after we had made and Dave Turner welded a new eye on the spear rod.

Several years ago we purchased and Does anyone else have any comments? ...Ed Dear Martin Please find attached a photo of an artifact that I think may be of interest to you. I rescued it from being left to rest on the bottom of the canal at Castlefield over 30 years ago.

I now need to find a forever home for it as I am moving house. It has a Hayley’s Patent and dates back to the 1800’s.

Best regards Steve Parr Anyone know what it is? And can anyone provide it with a ‘forever home’? Contact the editor and I’ll put you in touch with Steve Parr ...The Editor

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Restoration feature It’s been the site of one of the trial Canal Camps of 2021 - and it’s set to be one Derby and Sandiacre Canal

Where are we at now? Currently the

Derby and Sandiacre Canal Trust owns 6 sections totalling approx. 9 Km and has rebuilt 2 of the original bridges. of the canal started in 1993, when the The Derby and Sandiacre Canal Trust was At Sandiacre, we have started to excavate the lock chamber of the rubbish used as formed, 200 years after the original Act of infill. This section of the Derby Canal, unforNavigation was granted. The sections of the canal given to Derbyshire County Council tunately, from the Erewash Canal to Longmoor Lane in Sandiacre has been dehave now been returned to the DSCT, along with some sections in Derby owned by Derby clared an Industrial Landfill Site with all sorts of waste deposited. Trial samples showed City Council. We are also working with the that the toxic levels were low, but the local owners of various sections of canal purcouncil insisted that a high fence was put chased from the original canal company to return them to our ownership for restoration. round the site which the locals do not like.

We are in discussion with Severn Trent to The fully restored Derby Canal will redirect a sewer pipe that crosses the lock stretch for 20 Km (12.5 miles) from the lower wing wall and bridge base. Once the junction at Sandiacre on the Erewash Canal pipe is moved, hopefully in 2022, we will be to Spondon, just outside the east side of able to complete the dig out of the chamber Derby, a new section from Spondon to and start to rebuild the damaged wall. FuWilmorton by Pride Park and then south passing through Shelton Lock and Chellaston ture WRG Canal Camp??

The section from the Erewash Canal at to the Trent and Mersey Canal at Sandiacre to the M1 in Long Eaton, that the Swarkestone. On the existing canal line, Trust owns is filled in with the original except for a small section, the full width of hedges in place and a footpath down the the canal has been maintained along with centre. This is where our ‘extreme’ gardening the hedges. work parties start with hedge and path maintenance.

The next section that the Trust owns is from Hopwell Road to Derby Road in Draycott. This section is currently being dug out to create a 1.1Km section of restored canal.

Phase 1 of the dig out by Derby Road has been completed. When the canal was in-filled, no one took into consideration the surface water on the fields or the brooks which fed into the original canal. So when it rained the railway, at a lower level, flooded. In the late 1990’s a ditch was dug in the in-filled canal to Section of canal being restored at Draycott prevent the flooding but Pictures by DSCT

The restoration story: The restoration

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Derby & Sandiacre Canal again. David Savidge updates us on an important East Midlands restoration

Derby & Sandiacre Canal Length: 14 miles Locks: 9 (on main line) Date closed: 1964

Derby Original route lost

New route into Derby using River Derwent Proposed diversion past Derby

Sandiacre Lock work site Borrowash Locks work site

Proposed boat lift

Draycott Length To Nottingham

The Derby & Sandiacre Canal (or to use its historic name the Derby Canal) was started in 1793 and completed in 1796, under the supervision of Benjamin Outram. It was constructed to bring the coal, stone and clay from the Ripley area of Derbyshire to Derby, Nottingham, Birmingham and London.

Due to the high cost of the locks from Derby to Ripley, they decided to start the canal at Little Eaton, to the north of Derby. The canal company constructed an early railway, ‘gang road’, from Ripley to Little Eaton, with horses pulling a train of wagons on rails to the side of the canal in Little Eaton. Here, the boxes on the wagons were lifted and place in to the waiting narrow boats. ‘Containerisation’ in the 1790s!

The boats headed south to Derby to a junction to the north side of the River Derwent. The boats then either turned east and headed for Sandiacre and the Erewash Canal and Nottingham, or turned west to the Silk Mill on the Derwent in Derby. Alternatively, they crossed the river above a weir to head south to the Trent and Mersey Canal at Swarkestone, for goods for Birmingham and London. Before the railways came to the area there was an extension of the Derby Canal at Swarkestone with a set of locks down to the River Trent. This connection was lost early in the life of the canal, as passage on the river was difficult and the section finally cut by a railway track.

During World War 2, the Derby Canal was not deemed to be of strategic importance, as it was only a loop between the Erewash and Trent and Mersey Canals, and was not supported by the government and not included in the nationalisation of the canals after the War. It stayed in private hands and as the use of canals declined the revenue coming in didn’t cover the maintenance costs and it fell into disrepair. Finally the canal was abandoned in the 1960s, after an abortive attempt to navigate the canal in 1962 and an IWA protest rally. The canal then became a place for the builder who now owned it, to dispose of his site rubbish. When it was finally given to Derby City Council and Derbyshire County Council it was grassed over and turned into a foot path.

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they destroyed the clay liner and we are now having to reline the whole section. The liner is over half the cost to restore this section. This first section of 300m has a 30m section of moorings for when we get boats in the canal, and a plastic fence installed around the whole section to receive up to 10 water voles from the next section to be dug out next year.

The banks have been planted, seeded and plants transplanted to give the water voles a WRG Canal Camp working at Borrowash Bottom Lock... temporary home while the rest of the section is dug out. and we await a further sewer pipe diversion At the Hopwell Road end of the canal in by Severn Trent to allow this section to be Draycott, we are coming to the end, of what completely restored as a canal. The section feels a long road, to restore the canal cotfrom Station Road to the Spondon Bourne is tages. This was a mill built in about 1825 by still in filled, so here our ‘Extreme Gardening’ the canal company and later sold to the local teams maintain the hedges, trees and cut Long Eaton Co-op as houses for the farm the grass. workers at the Coops farms in Draycott. The The next section (heading west towards building has been changed and added to, in Derby) that the Trust own, is from Roving the previous 200 years. Going from a mill of Drive to Anglers Lane at Spondon. This 600m 2 storeys, to 3 storey cottages, 9 originally to section was returned to the Trust from Derby 6 in later life. The restoration work has now City Council following a proposal to build formed 3 cottages of 2 to 4 bedrooms, a some new houses between the canal and cafe, office, meetings rooms for the Trust Nottingham Road. When the builder origiand a small museum section. We have renally applied for planning approval, the plantained as much as possible of the later origi- ning officer suggested that he talk to the nal features but have followed modern plan- Trust to use our canal as the surface water ning requirements for insulation and finishes. catchment area. Following a joint planning Heading west towards Derby, we now application the builder dug out the section own the canal line from Fosse Close to the along the rear of his site down to the clay Spondon Bourne in Borrowash. In the 1990s, liner under our supervision. He also arranged we worked with a builder at Borrowash, who for disposal of the soil and debris that was was building a housing estate on the north found, including tyres, curb stones, window side of the canal. The builder dug out the sills, bricks and tarmac deposits from the Borrowash Bottom (Shacklecross) lock and a 1970s infill. All the road drains and roof section of canal above the lock to Station drains from the houses now feed into the Road in Borrowash. The lock chamber has canal and overflow out into the River over the last four years been the site of the Derwent to the south. three Canal Camps by WRG, lead by Colin Hobbs, to help us rebuild the lock chamber, Challenges ahead: The section from wing walls and the start of the bywash. The this dug out section to Anglers Lane is going planned visit in 2020 was (like all that year’s to prove to be a problem, as we have Severn camps) cancelled due to Covid. Our own Trent sewers going from east to west from volunteers have now completed some further the new housing site and an older estate at landscaping and seeding around the lock, Roving Drive. To add to the problem there is

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in need of some TLC. Maybe a job for the WRG Forestry team?

And what else? In Derby City Centre, we are working with Derby City Council to help them bring boating back to the city centre and improve the river side amenities. These include our trip boat Outram, which has recently been launched onto the river to provide a tourist attraction in 2022.

Plans are also being considered for the ‘Derby Arm’ boat lift, ...and view of the completed bottom end of the lock along side the canal by Pride Park. This would take boats out of the new section of canal at a surface water pipe heading west to east.

Both of these pipes run along the centre and Pride Park (which wil be built to bypass the lost sections of the canal in Derby - see map) below the old canal bed. The clay liner is and allow them to navigate up the river to a therefore totally destroyed and will require proposed new lock in the current weir and re-lining. new marina and moorings in the city centre.

On the southern section, we own apAs you can see at the Derby and proximately 1km section to the north of the Sandiacre Canal Trust we have lots of ongoA50 bypass at Chellaston. This section of canal was not filled in and Derby City Council ing projects in various stages to keep all our have maintained the towpath and surfaced it volunteers busy both on the ground and in as part of their cycle / foot path route. How- the back rooms.

David Savidge ever, over the years the trees along both Derby & Sandiacre Canal Trust sides of the canal have been neglected and

Trip boat ‘Outram’ is launched into the Derwent in autumn 2021

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Progress Wey & Arun Canal Down on the Wey & Arun they’re literally ‘reinventing the wheel’ - rebuilding and improving the unique waterwheel that supplies the canal at Lordings with associated end flanges had to be commissioned, manufactured to exact size and You may not know it, but there is a fixed in place by a specialist engineering waterwheel on the Wey & Arun Canal - and a contractor. All the peripheral steelwork had unique one at that. to be removed, then brushed up and rejuveAt the southern end of the canal, on nated with a special underwater paint. The the section which was built as part of the Arun Navigation, you’ll find Lordings Lock and Orfold Aqueduct (which form a single combined structure), along with a waterwheel. Here the canal is carried over the River Arun by the three-arched aqueduct, while the waterwheel - powered by the river lifts the water into the canal. It is thought to be the The late Winston Harwood working on the original 1990s restoration only one of its kind on the national waterways system.

Sadly, recent vandalism and deterioration have rendered the waterwheel unusable but thanks to a grant from a charitable trust, Wey & Arun Canal Trust volunteers have begun to restore this heritage asset.

The project, led by former mechanical engineer Brian King, has called for painstaking precision; a bespoke single The restored water wheel in earlier times stainless steel shaft Pictures by WACT

The Wey & Arun Canal waterwheel

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stainless steel buckets that move the water also needed re-welding, another specialist task.

The chute from which water flows into the aqueduct has been replaced with a Corten steel equivalent (the previous one made of wood having rotted through), while the current rubber seals used to prevent water loss between the buckets and the stone wall have also been removed and replaced with a unique stainless steel lip.

Brian follows in the footsteps of restoration pioneer the late Winston Harwood in attempting to bring this very special structure back to life. Back in 1992 Winston and fellow volunteers discovered what appeared to be the foundations of a building. They decided to excavate (by hand) and eventually uncovered the lock and aqueduct and exposed the waterwheel chamber for the first time in 140 years. Working from only the internal dimensions of the chamber, Winston constructed a waterwheel - no mean feat with no drawings

The rebuilt wheel or other example.

Further improvements have been made to the wheel over the years and work on the wheel will recommence in the spring (the area floods in winter making it difficult to get equipment on site). It is hoped the Wey & Arun Canal Trust will soon be able to show off this special structure in its full glory.

If you want to know more about the restoration of the Wey & Arun Canal and ongoing projects, see www.weyandarun.co.uk.

The current restoration work under way

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Progress S&N and Stover On the Shrewsbury & Newport the Wappenshall East Basin continues to progress, while the Stover Canal Trust have unveiled a completed replica crane Shrewsbury and Newport Canals

Pictures by Bernie Jones / S&NCT

In the Newport area the de-silting of the 2km in-water section of canal has now been completed by contractors and the Shrewsbury & Newport Canal Trust work parties have focused on general maintenance work, removing invasive Himalayan Balsam and planning to carry out work to enhance the appearance of the Newport Town Lock with some dummy gates donated by the Canal & River Trust.

At Wappenshall work has continued on restoring the east basin. A further volume of spoil has been removed to enable us to continue Preparing to lay the final few of the 101 concrete basin floor slabs laying waterproof membrane and casting reinforced concrete slabs in the bed of the basin. To date there have been 86 slabs completed from a total of 101, so the end is in sight! We recently also made a start on bricking up the retaining wall with engineering bricks. We are very grateful for the three and half days that Mick and Anne Lilliman put in to kickstart this particular job. About a quarter of the 2,400 bricks required have now been laid.

At the Shrewsbury end of the canal, further work has been carried out at either end of the Berwick Tunnel to improve the towpath, remove a lot of trees and debris from the canal and to create a new footpath on the offside.

Bernie Jones

Starting the brick facing on the basin wall...

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...and Himalayan balsam bashing

Stover Canal After three years of research, planning and preparation, a replica crane can be seen on the quayside of the Stover Canal at Ventiford Basin.

Funded by the West Country Branch of the Inland Waterways Association, the crane was unveiled by Dr. Ruth Sewell, their Heritage Champion, with many of the contractors involved with the project in attendance.

The event coincided with the delayed Tramway 200 celebrations of George Templer’s novel granite ‘railway’ (using lines of shaped stones for ‘rails’) which brought granite blocks from the family quarries at Haytor to the canal for onward shipment to London.

Stover Canal Trust Management Committee Chairman Rob Harris said, “We particularly wanted to recognise the contribution made by the local traders and craftsmen involved in producing this replica crane. From the initial sourcing, transportation and shaping of the oak tree by Buckley Farm Sawmills, the intricate fashioning of the wooden jib and supports by James French and the fabrication of the metalwork by RB Engineering, to the installation on the quayside by Matt Irish and Sibelco, it is a wholly local achievement much as it would have been originally. Our own team of dedicated volunteers also played a huge part in the project.”

Canal Trust Chairman John Pike said, “This is a major milestone in our restoration of the canal terminus at Ventiford. More work is scheduled to complete the project but the sight of the replica crane on the quayside gives a good impression of how busy the canal was in its heyday. There was a steady stream of visitors on the day and many positive comments were received which makes the efforts of all concerned very worthwhile.”

The restoration project should be fully completed by next spring when the volunteers expect to move downstream to tidy the Teigngrace Lock area.

Full details of the restoration of the site can be found at stovercanal.co.uk/ ventifordbasinrestoration2016

The replica crane at Ventiford is unveiled at an open day in September

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Progress here, there...

Rewatering the Lancaster, the complexities of abolishing an old lock on the Lichfield, and the final stages of bridge reinstatement on the River Gipping Lancaster canal Lancaster Canal Trust are very close to being able to open our ‘First Furlong’ - the first oneeighth of a mile of restored formerly dry canal north of the end of the watered section near Stainton. The stop planks still have to be made watertight and then stillage testing can take place. Once that is completed the bund between our water and the Canal & River Trust’s water can be removed. The Bund removal is costing in the region of £15,000 and if anyone would like to donate to that we would be very grateful. Donations can be made via the Trust website at https://www.lctrust.co.uk/ David Gibson

Lichfield Canal

LHCRT

The Lichfield & Hartherton Canals Restoration Trust’s volunteers have concentrated on two sites over the last few months. On the Tamworth Road section the old Lock 24 has been demolished because the channel above the lock is being dropped by 2.5 metres, bringing it down to Pound 25 level, in order to get under Cricket Lane, 200 yards to the west (with a replacement lock to be built on the far side of the lane). Within the former lock there would obviously have been sufficient wall footings and foundation for the wall to remain stable, whether the lock was full of water or empty. However, beyond the site of the former upper lock gate at the west end of the lock, the brickwork only extends downwards some 1.5 metres, below which there is no foundation. The wall is literally sitting on sandstone.

Volunteers have therefore had to stabilise the lock wall and the wing wall where it forms the boundary to the garden of the lock cottage, before excavating for the new channel depth. Trust engineering director Peter Buck designed a series of buttresses. The supporting piers for these buttresses each stem from the new north wall and encompass the dreaded ‘big pipe’ (a storm drain installed in the canal bed after the canal was abandoned in the 1950s) which has had to be ‘factored into’ the new north wall in this narrows section.

The buttresses effectively act to hold the base of the original wall in place. Four of the six buttresses have now been built, stabilising the gate wall and the closest sections of the wing wall.

One of the original quoin blocks has been fitted to act as a ‘rubbing strip’ for boats entering the narrows where the lock used to be, and 15 metres of a new south wall have been constructed using the original bricks where possible. The best bricks have gone into the front wall and the damaged bricks have been used to form shuttering for the back Lichfield old Lock 24: buttresses to stabilise the gate and wing walls wall, whilst the con-

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LHCRT

crete in-fill goes off and hardens. The good half bricks have been used to form a dry-stone wall to the bank. The remaining brick rubble has been placed into the concrete in-fill in order to use less concrete and even the mortar scalpings from the brick cleaning tables have been used as the base layer to the new towpath. The wall has been ‘topped out’ with a soldier course of blue engineering bricks to resist any impact damage from boats and because these new bricks are far Lichfield old Lock 24: the new south wall less porous Meanwhile, at the Trust’s Fosseway Heath site, a team of bricklayers is rebuilding 50 metres of wall where boats waiting for their turn to go through Lock 18 can be moored. Lock 18, renamed Wood Lock 18 in honour of the Trust’s president Eric Wood who recently celebrated his 90th birthday, was built in 1797, closed in 1954, filled in during the 1960s, then was one of the Trust’s first excavation sites in 1997. The rebuilt wall is being made entirely with bricks reclaimed from the original 1797 wall, which was constructed without mortar at a time when the water table was much higher and run-off from the surrounding fields drained into the canal.

River Gipping

RGT

River Gipping Trust volunteers have nearly completed the footbridge over the River Gipping in Suffolk. This bridge is around 1km upstream of Baylham lock. The reopening of the bridge restores about one mile of the old towpath route lost over 80 years ago when the bridge was last seen at the bottom of the river. The 230 year old brick abutments built by engineer John Rennie have been restored, all work being done by volunteers without the rental of any equipment. A lot has been achieved in a year.

The wooden footbridge platform itself is now complete with Trust volunteers now working hard on developing a safe entrance to and from the footbridge. This will entail some temporary work, including steps up to the footbridge platform. We are hoping to have a grand opening in the spring. We still have some way to go to River Gipping: the bridge beams are manoeuvred into place make the one-mile per-

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RGT

missive path leading to and from the footbridge accessible to all and the Trust continues to fundraise to facilitate this.

We started fundraising specifically for the footbridge around two and a half years ago.

After a slow start we raised around £1,500, but over the last year this increased significantly and the Trust has now received just over £15,000 in donations which enabled us to order all the wooden footbridge materials which were delivered at the end of September. The footbridge has been built entirely by volunteers, again the Trust has not rented any equipment.

The footbridge itself was just under £10,000 but over £3,000 has been spent on planning permissions, EA permits, ecologist services and miscellaneous materials including sand, cement, bat boxes etc..

The five wooden beams, each weighing around ¾ tonne and 475mm high, were rolled across the river using a temporary scaffolding bridge and short scaffolding tube rollers. The local farmer’s teleporter was used to lift the beams halfway across the scaffolding. The beams were then rolled across (amazingly, one volunteer alone could easily do this). With the teleporter on one side and the Trust’s digger on the other, the beams were then lifted off the scaffolding and on to the abutment sides. When all five beams were across the scaffolding was quickly removed and the beams lifted into their correct position on the abutment spreader beams.

Our intent by the spring is to have the permissive pathway leading to and from the footbridge to be classed as accessible to all, including suitable mobility scooters, wheelchairs and push chairs. It will have improved cross fall and modest slopes. Our long-term aim is to make the footpath from Baylham to Needham Market accessible to all with no steps and wheelchair friendly slopes.

Whilst this work continues, the Trust has been working hard behind the scenes to restore navigation along the river and is concentrating efforts towards making the 4km stretch of river between Needham Lakes and Baylham navigable again including an electric trip boat between the two. The Trust has had two pre-feasibility studies carried out. Both clearly state restoration of navigation is possible and could improve biodiversity. They recommend an in depth scoping study of this stretch of the river. The scoping study will focus heavily on biodiversity improvements and any flood risks. If the study concludes that biodiversity can be improved and that there are no flood risks the next step will be to apply for a grant for a full feasibility study which will detail all the work and costs required to implement the project.

Ian Petchey, River Gipping Trust Restoration Manager

The bridge in situ

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Grand Union Wendover Arm The major news from the Wendover Canal Trust (formerly the Wendover Arm Trust - note change of name) is that the first water has been let into the next section of the Wendover Arm to be restored.

On a blustery and cold November day volunteers commenced re-watering of a further quarter mile section of the canal between the two footbridges, bridges 4 an 4A. This is another milestone for the Trust whose volunteers have worked tirelessly, sometimes in appalling weather, to complete this new section which has not held water for over one hundred years.

“Pulling the plug” by the existing bund was carried out by both the oldest and newest volunteers to the Trust. Permission had to be obtained from the Canal & River Trust, the owners of the canal, and it has been estimated that re-watering will take ‘Pulling the plug’ to let the first water in up to a fortnight. However this will not be to navigable depth and completion of the remaining section linking up with the Phase 1 restoration at Little Tring will be necessary before boating is possible.

Removal of a major obstruction by way of an old tip at Little Tring will cost the Trust a very substantial sum: funding for this work is being investigatedand any contributions will be very Whitehouses pumping station site before and after rewatering welcome!

Whilst re-watering was in progress 7 Scouts aged 11- 17, three Scout leaders and two mothers, all braving the blizzard conditions at the winding hole, planted 60 hedging trees along the back fence and weeded around last year’s trees.

This was for their Community Service badge.

Nigel Williams, Publicity Director, Wendover Canal Trust

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group report KESCRG The regional mobile working party groups have been getting going again in the autumn. Let’s hear what a couple of them have been up to, starting with Kescrg... newly rewatered section beyond Bridge 1 at Cosgrove. We were staying at Stoke Bruerne As reported in the last edition of Navvies, village hall, and seven of us were booked in mobile working party group Kescrg returned to sleep at the accommodation. Still a small to weekend digging in September with a number by normal standards, but just about very successful dig helping prepare reinforcthe right number for this weekend as we ing and formwork for a concrete pour on the slowly increased the size of digs as we beWey and Arun at the Tickner’s Heath Road came more comfortable and confident with Crossing. This weekend proved that a hybrid the arrangements. Best of all, we once more approach combining local volunteers, Kescrg had a dedicated cook with Anne being with day trippers and a small group staying over- us for the weekend – Mick was also out night in traditional dig fashion was both digging, but he was down in the South West worthwhile and effective, and as Covid safe with WRG Forestry. This might be the ideal as we could make it - and more importantly realisation of the romantic weekend digging reminded us just how much we had missed ‘together’… getting out and being constructive and useful Saturday morning saw us meet with on canal projects over the preceding 18 Terry and his local crew at Cosgrove for a months. A quick Lateral Flow Test before briefing on Covid arrangements, the site and and after the weekend was a small if slightly the specific work we were doing, then we uncomfortable price to pay for being back proceeded down the Arm to the offending out doing what we love. leaky sections to do some ‘investigation’.

So, with this experience under our belts The canal here traverses the gentle slope of our October weekend was arranged on the the River Ouse valley, and the first task was Buckingham Arm of the Grand Union canal, to cut trenches in the waterlogged farmer’s the plan being to investigate and repair a field to encourage the leaking water to flow number of leaks that had appeared in the away from the puddles it had created at the

Stephen Davis

Kescrg returns…

Kescrg on the Wey & Arun: formwork set up ready for concrete at Tickner’s Heath road crossing

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Tim Lewis

Tim Lewis

base of the low canal embankment and out into the field, so we could try and pin point the leaks. The conclusion was a) it is quite fun digging mini canals in a muddy farmer’s field, and b) the water was emerging from multiple places along 20m or so of the embankment.

The plan for the repairs was to dig a narrow, deep slit trench in the towpath, then fill this with puddling clay.

This we duly did for Kescrg on the Buckingham: stockpiling clay for fixing the leaks... the rest of the weekend – given there was only one excavator and it was opening hours at the lovely Boat Inn… we busy digging the trench, this involved a lot of were all in bed by 11pm on the Saturday. manual filling of the dumper with clay, and Scandalous! walking to-and-fro from the clay pile some On to November, and we made a weldistance away – but at least this kept us come return to the Wendover Arm, another busy! branch of the Grand Union Canal. This is a By the end of the weekend it looked great project and one which when complete like the leaks were subsiding, and LWRG will have huge and immediate benefit to the were returning a couple of weeks later to canal system as it will provide water from continue the trench, so hopefully now the springs in Wendover directly to the Tring field is somewhat drier. The only downside summit pound of the canal’s main line to the weekend were the slightly curtailed (rather than via Tringford Pumping Station as at present), greatly reducing the pumping required to keep the Grand Union up and running. Kescrg have been heavily involved on this canal over the years – most recently five or six years ago with the restoration of the overflow structures at the former Whitehouses pumping station site. It is always great to return to a canal after several years away to see progress at first hand, and this was no exception, with the section past Whitehouse complete and due to be rewatered shortly after our visit – and indeed it is now in water, with some great pictures available ...and filling the trench with it... by hand! online. The local trust are

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Mick Lilliman

now onto the last phase of their relining project from bridge 4 back to the navigable section at Little Tring, and we joined them for the first weekend of their regular November week-long working party. Our task was to complete the brickwork of the former swing-bridge narrows around bridge 4, so they could concentrate on continuing the Bentomat (waterproof bentonite matting) lining.

With this brickwork complete, they would be able to Kescrg on the Wendover: rebuilding the old swingbridge narrows decamp the container and tools from this area, enabling them to complete dinner queues, I think we have had a really the lining of the base of the canal, which in successful three digs this autumn. Of turn would free up logistics for handling and course, just as I write this the Omicron varireusing the spoil from profiling the canal line, ant has reared its head, and we’ll have to rather than having to store it all at their main see how things pan out over the next month compound for future use. or two – but if vaccines and testing remain It had proved a little tricky finding effective, and there is not too great a wave accommodation, but in the end we were very of infection, I am very much looking forward impressed with Wiggington Village Hall – a to more weekend digs in the new year, rereally good sized hall, with decent kitchen turning hopefully as the year progresses to and a nice pub almost next door… and it pre-pandemic numbers and regularity. turns out an enormous, free fireworks disStephen Davis play that draws in thousands of people from all around on the Saturday evening of a dig Kescrg weekend (I suppose it may not happen every Although it originally stood for dig weekend, my sample size is admittedly ‘Kent & East Sussex Canal Reslimited). When a sizeable oak tree is fully silhouette by the bonfire as you approach toration Group’, Kescrg has for a long time been a mobile group the field, you know they mean business! supported by volunteers from By the end of the weekend we had completed all but a handful of the bricks, all over the south eastern part of the country - and further and contributed to what looks to have been afield. The group holds weekend another really successful work party for the local group. We had ten volunteers at the working parties usually at monthly intervals, on various accommodation, again with Anne cooking waterways mainly in the south. (thanks Anne!), and Mick was even with her this time. This has been a gradual ramping New volunteers are welcome, see kescrgonline.co.uk or find up of the number of volunteers as individuals the Kescrg group on Facebook feel comfortable returning and sharing spaces, and with testing and being a little for details careful in congested areas such as toilets and

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Groups

London WRG

WRG’s London-based mobile weekend working party group has also been out and about lately, on the Wey & Arun and Buckingham canals London WRG You can glean quite a lot about what London WRG’s volunteers have been up to during their first two working parties in over a year (and their first ‘proper’ weekends with real WRG accommodation and catering since March 2020) by reading the Kescrg group report on the preceding pages. Why? Do we take our lead from Kescrg? No, it’s just that we visited two of the same sites - the Wey & Arun and the Buckingham. And that’s because they both happen to be ones where there’s plenty to do, that we can also get to reasonably easily from the south east where most of our volunteers live - making it suitable for a few of our volunteers who were happier to just join us for the day on site.

So I’ll concentrate on the other work we did that hasn’t already been covered in Stephen’s Kescrg report. I won’t dwell on the main work we did in October on the Wey & Arun, putting up for one of many concrete pours at the new Tickher’s Heath road crossing, but I’ll mention that at the same time several of us laid our first bricks on a London WRG weekend since February 2020, putting up the side walls on the abutments of the pedestrian / bike / horse bridge that forms the first part of the new road crossing. And we seem not to have entirely forgotten how to lay bricks.

No surprises that Adrian ‘Velcro’ Sturgess found himself a digger to play with.

That’s something which hasn’t changed in our 18 month holiday from digging.

And another small team put a load of willow (cut down from where it was making access awkward from the road into the superduper site compound) through the chipper.

Oh yes, and we sorted out our catering kit. You wouldn’t believe what gravy browning and Swiss rolls turn into after 18 months...

And despite our lowish numbers (seven altogether), local site leader Dave Evans was suitably pleased with what we managed to achieve over the weekend, and we hope to be back there soon.

Our next outing in November was to the Buckingham Canal - and once again the main job for the weekend was one that Kescrg have already covered in their report. This was curing leaks in the canal by digging a slit trench in the towpath, filling it with clay (the locals called it ‘dinosaur poo’), pounded down to make it watertight, then putting the topsoil back on top and trying to leave a decent surface for walking on. I get the impression that rewatering a canal that’s been dry for some decades takes a fair amount of this kind of work before all the leaks are sealed.

Other jobs that we helped with included building a ‘bug hotel’ - a habitat made of old decaying wood to encourage invertibrate wildlife species. It had already been christened ‘Buggingham Palace’ by the local Buckingham Canal Society folks, but there was some discussion about whether it should have a branch of Starbugs...

There was also some of the first scrubbashing that we’ve done since the end of 2019, with a few wind-blown trees to be dealt with, and we were introduced to the Canal Society’s fleet of workboats. Oh, and Adrian S found another big digger to play with. Local site organiser Terry Cavender was suitably pleased with our efforts, our numbers were up to nine on this one, and we’re likely to be back there in the new year.

Anyway although our numbers are still low (and can’t be too much higher while Covid safety means we need to distance in the sleeping area), we’ve had a couple of useful weekends. And despite our Christmas joint dig with Kescrg having been cancelled (due to the uncertainty surrounding the new Covid strain - not to mention whether anyone was prepared to let us sleep in their village hall at the moment) the group is back up and running. For 2022 we hope to take up our long-planned intention to have a first dig on the old internal canals at the Waltham Abbey Gunpowder Mills. New volunteers welcome: see our page on the WRG website or find London WRG on Facebook for details.

Martin Ludgate

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navvies

Bookshop

A chance to pick up sought-after specialist waterways books while helping canal restoration, as the WRG book auction returns after a long absence WRG book auction We have recently been donated a number of good canal books for fund-raising and have decided that the best way to sell them is to auction them through Navvies - with all the proceeds going to help fund WRG. The reserve prices suggested are the minimum that we would accept and are considerably less than you might see from a specialist book dealer.

You are invited to make your bids (in multiples of 50p). Simply list down the Lot Number (the number on the left hand side) and the price you are prepared to pay for each book that you are bidding for. The bidder offering the highest price for each lot gets the book at the price bid. In the event of two equal highest bids, the first one received wins. All proceeds go to WRG so you can afford to be generous. All bids should be sent by email to enquiries@wrg.org.uk (please make subject of the email ‘WRG book auction’) no later than 31 January 2022. Successful bidders will be notified shortly afterwards. Postage and packing is extra, at cost. The winning bids (but not the identity of the bidders) and the total raised will be published in a future issue of Navvies.

Lot Title/author 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Reserve Hard/paper EditionCond Date

Canal Mania: 200 Years of Britain’s Waterways - Anthony Burton £5.00 Liquid History - Arthur Bryant £5.00 The Narrowboat Builder’s Book - Graham Booth £5.00 The Inland Waterways Manual - Emrhys Barrel £3.00 Simple Boat Electrics - John Myatt £4.00 A Right Good Crew - Emily Kimbrough £7.00 Journey Without End: A Voyage Through England’s Waterways - David Bolton £2.00 Ramlin Rose: The Boatwomans Story - Shella Stewart £6.00 A Thames Companion - Mari Prichard & Humphrey Carpenter £2.00 Canal Cruising - John Hankinson £1.00 Canal Boats and Boaters - D. J. Smith £2.00 Slow Boat Through France - Hugh McKnight £1.50 Narrow Boats: Care And Maintenance - Nick Billingham £2.50 Historic Waterways Scenes: London & South-East England - Martyn Denney £3.00 Diesel Boat Engine Manual - Peter Bowyer £1.50 The Great Days Of The Canals - Anthony Burton £3.00 Exploring Britain’s Canals - Paul Atterbury £3.50 Southern Inland Waterways - Derek Pratt £3.00 Barging Into France - Gerard Morgan-Grenville £3.00 The Canals of England - Eric De Mare £3.00 Canal & Inland Cruising - John Gagg £4.00 Rivers, Lakes and Canals: Exploring Britain - Reader’s Digest £1.50 The Ballinamore & Ballyconnell Canal - Patrick Flanagan £10.00 Inland Waterways of Great Britain and Ireland - LA Edwards £10.00 British Waterways: South Eastern Division - 1960 £10.00 Voyage Into England - John Seymour £15.00

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Hardback Paperback Paperback Hardback Paperback Hardback

N/A N/A 3rd N/A N/A N/A

Fair 1993 Worn 1960 Good 1999 Good 1993 Good 1997 Fair 1959

Hardback Hardback

N/A N/A

Good 1987 Good 1993

Hardback Hardback Hardback Hardback Hardback

N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

Good 1975 Fair 1967 Good 1973 Good 1991 Fair 1997

Hardback Hardback Hardback Hardback Hardback Hardback Hardback Hardback Hardback Hardback Hardback Paperback Hardback

N/A Good 1980 3rd Good 1994 Unk. Good 1995 N/A Excel. 1994 1st Good 1982 1st Good 1972 2nd imp Fair 1956 1st Good 1989 1st Good 1984 1st Good 1972 2nd Good 1962 N/A Good 1960 1st Excel. 1966

27 The Canals of North West England - Volume 2 - Charles Hadfield and Gordon Biddle £15.00 Hardback 1st Excel. 1970 28 The Canals of The West Midlands - Charles Hadfield £10.00 Hardback 1st Good 1966 29 The Leicester Line: A History of the Old Union and Grand Union Canals - Philp A. Stevens £5.00 Hardback 1st Excel. 1972 30 The Canals of the North of Ireland - W. A. McCutcheon £35.00 Hardback 1st Fair-gd 1965 31 The Canals of North West England - Volume 1 - Charles Hadfield and Gordon Biddle £10.00 Hardback 1st Excel. 1970 32 The Grand Canal of Ireland - Ruth Delany £15.00 Hardback 1st Excel. 1973 33 The Canals of South Wales and The Border - Charles Hadfield £15.00 Hardback 1st Good 1960 34 The Canals of The East Midlands (Including part of London) - Charles Hadfield £10.00 Hardback 1st Good 1966 35 The Bude Canal - Helen Harris & Monica Ellis £7.00 Hardback 1st Good 1972 36 Land of Time Enough: A Journey through the Waterways of Ireland - Raymond Gardner £20.00 Hardback 1st Fair 1977 37 The Oxford Canal - Hugh J Compton £15.00 Hardback 1st Excel. 1976 38 British Canals: Is their Resuscitation Practicable? - Edwin A. Pratt £2.00 Hardback 1st Poor 1906 39 The Lost Canals of England and Wales - Ronald Russell £8.00 Hardback 1st Good 1971 40 London’s Lost Route to Basingstoke - P. A. L. Vine £15.00 Hardback 1st Fair 1968 41 The Grand Western Canal - Helen Harris £12.00 Hardback 1st Good 1973 42 Inland Waterways of Europe - George Allen - 1963 £5.00 Hardback 1st Poor 1963 43 Inland waterways of France - E. E. Benest £2.00 Hardback 3rd Fair 1971 44 Voyage In A Bowler Hat - Hugh Malet £10.00 Hardback 1st Fair 1960 45 Through England’s Waterways - Montague & Ann Lloyd £8.00 Hardback 1st Fair 1948 46 Canals, Cruises and Contentment - Austin E. Neal £25.00 Hardback 1st Fair 1910 47 Thomas Telford - L. T. C. Rolt £5.00 Hardback 2nd Fair 1959 48 Green And Silver - L. T. C Rolt £30.00 Hardback 1st Good 1949 49 The Canals of Eastern England - John Boyes and Ronald Russell (Signed copy) £10.00 Hardback 1st Good 1977 50 The Birmingham Canal Navigations Volume 1 - S. R. Broadbridge £15.00 Hardback 1st Good 1974 51 Waterways To Stratford - Charles Hadfield and John Norris £15.00 Hardback 1st Fair 1962 52 The Somersetshire Coal Canal and Railway - Kenneth R. Clew £10.00 Hardback 1st Good 1970 53 Sailing Through England - John Seymour 1956 £12.00 Hardback 1st Good 1956 54 The Thames & Severn Canal - Humphrey Household £14.00 Hardback 1st Fair 1969 55 London’s Lost Route to the Sea - P. A. L. Vine £15.00 Hardback 1st Good 1965 56 The Nutbrook Canal Derbyshire - Peter Stevenson £15.00 Hardback 1st Excel. 1970 57 The Canals of The South of Ireland - V. T. H. & D. R. Delany £30.00 Hardback 1st Fair 1966 58 In the Wake of the Gods: On the Waterways of Ireland - Hugh Malet £25.00 Hardback 1st Good 1970 59 The Canals of Scotland - Jean Lindsay £25.00 Hardback 1st Good 1968 60 The Canals of Southern England - Charles Hadfield £7.00 Hardback 1st Fair 1955 61 My Holidays on Inland Waterways - P. Bonthron £10.00 Hardback 3rd Good 1919 62 The Dorset & Somerset Canal - Kenneth R. Clew £12.00 Hardback 1st Good 1971 63 Complete set of Waterways World magazine, issue1 on £1.00 (*) see below regarding collection 64 Complete set of Navvies from issue 61 onwards £1.00 (*) see below regarding collection (*) Buyer to arrange collection from their choice of Chesham, Lancashire or Oxford

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News

navvies

Shake this Navvies, and out will (hopefully) fall a leaflet about the Inland Waterways Association’s Heritage Campaign. Gemma explains...

Support IWA’s Heritage Campaign ership of these features, many of which are

unique to their particular waterway. We all know that funding is scarce for both local authorities and navigation authorities so active support from the local community helps keep the waterways heritage message on the agenda.

As a part of the campaign, people have been asked to send in photographs of interesting pieces of heritage along the waterways – not necessarily the bigger things like bridges, locks, aqueducts, tunnels etc. but the smaller features that are all too often overlooked such as rope marks on a bridge, mason’s marks on a lock wall, canal company signage or mile posts along the towpath. See waterways.org.uk/campaigns/canal-heritage/ hidden-heritage to see the gallery, or email hiddenheritage@waterways.org.uk with any photos you have to add to it – say where they were taken (use what3words if possi-

Pictures by IWA

As you may be aware (especially if you’ve spotted the insert that fell out of this issue of Navvies),WRG’s parent body the Inland Waterways Association is highlighting the hidden heritage of the waterways as a part of its wider campaign to save waterways heritage – both on the waterways which are already navigable and the abandoned ones that we’re working to restore. This campaign aims to improve the protection of heritage assets along the UK’s rivers and canals through the extension of existing Conservation Areas and by raising awareness of historic waterways features that may be at risk from insensitive development.

IWA is engaging with local communities to promote the importance of waterways hidden heritage as part of their local history and to encourage a sense of pride and own-

Atherstone pressure valve sparked a debate

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Towrope roller on the Leeds & Liverpool

ble) and send both a close-up and a wider picture for context.

Any hidden gems that are uncovered will be recorded for future generations and where required, IWA will lobby the relevant authorities to ensure these features are protected and repaired. In order to carry out this activity, IWA will be recruiting new, and supporting existing, Heritage Champions across its regional branches. As part of their role, IWA’s Heritage Champions will help to safeguard waterways heritage in their area by monitoring any planned developments.

Full training will be given.

IWA has put out a call for people to send in their photographs of hidden heritage and has already received a number of interesting photos including one of an ornate pressure valve on the Coventry canal at Bridge 43 (Lock 5) at Atherstone. This valve causes much debate among boaters in the area who often ask what it is. IWA’s Heritage Group is now in agreement that it is an air valve which releases air from a high point to prevent restricted flow on a water main that crosses the bridge.

Alison Smedley, Campaigns & Public Affairs manager, IWA says: “IWA believes that waterways should be protected from inappropriate development, through being

included in a Conservation Area or by specific buildings and structures being Listed. As part of our campaign to call for local authorities to better protect waterways heritage, we are asking people to investigate their local canal or river in more detail than perhaps they ever have before and find items of interest.

We want to make sure the quirky features of the waterways are retained, ideally in working order and are not forgotten in the future.”

Many thanks to everyone who has already donated to the Save Waterways Heritage campaign. For those of you who are able to support the campaign with a financial donation, please know that your funding will go directly towards three key areas of work.

Milestone on the Worcester & Birmingham

Lock distance marker on the Oxford Canal

Understanding and increasing planning ·protection for the waterways Lobbying government bodies where ·heritage features are under specific threat Recruiting and supporting heritage ·champions to safeguard our waterways from poor development Please see IWA’s insert in this issue of Navvies for more information on how to donate or visit www.waterways.org.uk/restoreheritage.

Gemma Bolton

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navvies

News

New funding for restoration, Cromford needs new blood, WRG Forestry are back at work, more about vans, and season’s greetings from the Ed From the IWA Restoration Hub...

For those of you involved in canal restoration societies and trusts, the following piece by Ian Sesnan and Ray Alexander on a source of Government funding which has already resulted in a large grant for the Montgomery Canal may be of interest...

New Government Funding Sources coming on stream The Levelling Up Fund was launched earlier this year and a small number of restoration projects have received funding approval. The most noteworthy probably being the Montgomery Canal which has received an award close to £16m [see feature, page 10].

Local authorities in all parts of the UK can apply for these funds in the upcoming rounds and now is the time for restoration leaders to be discussing this with your local authority. There is one application allowed for each UK parliamentary constituency and the MP must support applications.

This fund will probably have further rounds this year and next - for capital projects that can complete within two to three years. It will be superseded by a new Shared Prosperity Fund which will be similar but is expected to have longer timescales and support revenue and capital projects.

Information about future funding rounds and what the priorities will be is not published yet but one thing is for sure – now is the time to think carefully about what projects you could put forward and get discussions going with MP/local authority.

There is an IWA Briefing Note on the subject: see waterways.org.uk/

Attention WRG van drivers!

More about Congestion Charge and Ultra Low Emissions zones...

The four van/minibuses in the main WRG Canal Camps fleet (BOB, EHP, RFB and

page 42

SAD) have now been set up for automatic payment of the London Congestion Charge and also (for the two vehicles which aren’t exempt, that’s BOB and EHP), also the London Ultra Low Emissions Zone (which has now been extended out to the north and south circular roads). That doesn’t mean you can drive through these zones with impunity - it will still mean WRG or its parent body IWA will have to pay, so bear that in mind when planning your journey and think about who it should be charged to. But it does mean that if you do drive through these zones, IWA will automatically get charged, so there’s no danger of anyone getting fined if you forget.

The bad news is that auto-pay isn’t available for the other places with emissions zones as yet, but we have set the vans up for payment via head office.

Your help needed on the Cromford Canal The Friends of the Cromford Canal are looking for new Trustees to move their restoration plans forward in 2022. We have planning approval for a significant restoration project at Langley Mill but we need new enthusiastic Trustees from all backgrounds to help guide us through these exciting times.

We are an active charity whose aim is to restore the Cromford Canal to navigation over the 14.5 miles between the end of the Erewash Canal at Langley Mill Basin and Cromford Wharf.

Presently there is only a 1.5 mile length of canal in navigation, between Cromford Wharf and the Derwent Aqueduct at the northern end of the canal, and a short length at the southern end from below the road bridge through the first lock to the end of the Langley Mill basin, but in between the line of the canal is still present on some reaches whereas other sections have unfortunately been lost to new development and a new alignment will be needed. Last year, we obtained planning approval for a 1km reach

And WRG Forestry too...

We’ve already mentioned that London WRG and Kescrg have restarted working parties; as pictured here WRG Forestry are also back at work, on a new site on Somerset’s River Parrett.

It would be good to hear from NWPG and BITM too in the next issue - any news, folks? of the canal which is known as the “Beggarlee Extension”, starting from the Langley Mill basin heading north up the Erewash valley [See our restoration feature in Navvies issue 303].

We operate a trip boat on the northern section of the canal on a commercial basis to provide some funding for modest repair and maintenance work along the canal and have aspirations to extend this section of the canal further.

The charity’s management board realise that we need an urgent Trustee-refresh and we are looking for people with a background and interest in canal restoration and preferably who have specific skills to bring to our team. We are particularly short of engineering and finance skills.

So if you think you can help us accelerate our restoration and development aims please get in touch: we are looking for enthusiastic and energetic individuals who can work co-operatively with existing Trustees.

Please see our website www.cromfordcanal.org for more detail on our canal and aims.

Interested parties should email the Chairman David Martin for an informal chat at chair@cromfordcanal.org.uk

Stamps wanted With Christmas cards dropping through people’s letterboxes, it’s a good time to remind you that the WRG Stamp Bank collects used stamps and other items (empty printer ink cartridges, old phones, aluminium cans and foil, coupons, old coins and banknotes) and passes them on to canal societies to fund restoration. Send them to WRG Stamp Bank, Steve & Mandy Morley, 33 Hambleton Grove, Emerson Park, Milton Keynes MK4 2JS, Tel: 01908 520090, mail@morleytowers.org.uk.

And speaking of Christmas Christmas greetings and all the best for the New Year to all our readers. My sincere thanks to all our contributors during a rather trying year; also to Chris Griffiths, John Hawkins and the envelope-stuffing team at the London Canal Museum for making sure it gets printed and sent out; to Jen, Mikk, Alex, Jonathan and all at head office for all their support; to Lesley for proofreading; to Robert Goundry for rounding up progress reports; and to anyone I’ve forgotten. I hope I really will see more of you on site in 2022!

Martin Ludgate

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Restored through here by 2024?