Editor Martin feared it might never happen

Editorial It’ll never happen?

Martin muses on the 1980s, rail crossings, and the return of Canal Camps

Thought it would never happen? (1)

When I first got involved in canal restoration, the schemes which had been completed and reopened to date were what might be called the ‘first generation’ projects. Canals which had never actually been officially closed, just starved of maintenance and left to fall derelict. Routes like the Ashton, Lower Peak Forest, southern Stratford, Stourbridge and Caldon.

That’s not to say they were ‘easy’. In fact getting people to accept the idea of anyone wanting to reopen them at all was hard work, when these canals (especially the urban ones) were widely seen as a dangerous liability to be filled in for the public good.

Some of the canals I first worked on, particularly the Basingstoke, were in the same category - however much hard work was involved in restoring them, they’d never actually shut, so there weren’t any demolished road bridges to replace, or filled in lengths to reinstate.

But others, such as the Huddersfield, the Rochdale and the Wey & Arun, were in the next generation. They had been officially closed; their routes filled in and obstructed by roads and buildings; locks and aqueducts demolished, tunnels collapsed. Frankly they were regarded as ‘impossible’ by many even within the restoration movement. And I’ll admit that I had my doubts too.

But then in the early 1980s a restoration scheme - the Rochdale I think - did the ‘impossible’ and got funded to fully restore and reopen a section, including reinstating demolished road bridges. And all of a sudden they didn’t seem quite so ‘impossible’ any more. And sure enough, many of those schemes have since been completed, while others are in the ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ category.

But although replacing demolished road bridges had become commonplace on canal restorations in recent years, nobody anywhere in Britain had ever removed a blockage to a canal restoration that was caused by a working main line railway crossing the canal without a bridge. Until now.

Because as you’ll see from the pictures in this issue, that’s what happened on the Cotswold Canals over Christmas / New Year. The Bristol to Birmingham railway, which (since the original bridge was demolished in the 1960s) used to cross the Stroudwater Navigation on an embankment with a tiny culvert to carry the water, now spans it on a new fully navigable sized concrete bridge.

And to me it feels slightly the same as the Rochdale all those years ago. It’s been shown to be achievable, and the various other restoration sites that will need new rail bridges - such as the Wilts & Berks, the Lichfield, elsewhere on the Cotswold Canals suddenly don’t seem so ‘impossible’ any more.

And no, don’t worry, I’m not talking about volunteers doing the work! But as ever, they’ve played a large part in getting the restoration projects to the point where these bigger challenges can be dealt with.

Thought it would never happen? (2)

...and speaking of volunteer work, one thing that has also seemed like it might never happen was for an issue of Navvies to once again appear in print accompanied by a Canal Camps booklet with a full programme of summer camps. For the last two years it’s been a case of the editor trying (usually unsuccessfully) to second-guess the pandemic and publish optimistic ‘coming soonish’ features about Camps that might or might not happen, only to have to apologise in the next issue. Until now.

So while nothing is ever entirely certain - and there may well be some additions / deletions / changes to the programme (in which case we’ll do our best to keep you informed via the next couple of issues of Navvies as well as the WRG website and Facebook group) - we really are optimistic that after last summer’s five ‘trial camps’, this summer will be back to more like the old days. So for once I can end with...

“So hopefully I’ll see you on a Canal Camp sometime this summer”. ...with a chance that it might be true. Martin Ludgate page 5