Progress around the system

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

The Wey & Arun Canal waterwheel

You may not know it, but there is a waterwheel on the Wey & Arun Canal - and a unique one at that.

At the southern end of the canal, on 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 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 stainless steel shaft with associated end flanges had to be commissioned, manufactured to exact size and fixed in place by a specialist engineering contractor. All the peripheral steelwork had to be removed, then brushed up and rejuvenated with a special underwater paint. The

Pictures by WACT The late Winston Harwood working on the original 1990s restoration The restored water wheel in earlier times

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 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 rebuilt wheel

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

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 Pictures by Bernie Jones / S&NCT 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. Starting the brick facing on the basin wall... ...and Himalayan balsam bashing

Bernie Jones

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

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

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 LHCRT wall, whilst the con- Lichfield old Lock 24: buttresses to stabilise the gate and wing walls page 30

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 LHCRT less porous Lichfield old Lock 24: the new south wall

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: the bridge beams are manoeuvred into place

River Gipping

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 make the one-mile per-

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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

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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 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 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 ‘Pulling the plug’ to let the first water in

Whitehouses pumping station site before and after rewatering