Camps Preview looking forward to ’22

coming soon... 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... ...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.

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 compacting it. Site for the new Maidenhead Waterways slipway

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

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! page 10

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.

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

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.