Progress Wilts & Berks

The Wilts & Berks Canal Trust reports on benches, a boat and a drydock, and promises us some exciting news in the next issue of Navvies

Wilts & Berks Canal

The Canalside Partnership at Wichelstowe in Swindon – a development partnership between Swindon Borough Council and Barrett Homes, is proceeding with getting planning permissions to extend the existing stretch of canal in Swindon right up to the planned M4 crossing, with a branch connecting it to a short existing stretch at East Wichel; this will triple the navigable length we have there.

The Wilts & Berks Canal Trust has just acquired leases on two significant pieces of land –Naish Hill, between Chippenham & Lacock and Uffington

Gorse, a patch of woodland adjacent to the canal that we plan to turn into a canal park similar to the one we have been working on by Shrivenham that celebrates biodiversity. Memorial benches have been installed at three locations to commemorate three of our volunteers recently deceased – Roy Murrell and Chris Naish in our East Vale branch, and Kath Hatton, our major fundraiser for many years for the Trust as a whole, installed on our jetty in Swindon. Pictured [opposite page, top] is Roy’s bench.

In Swindon, work has begun on mapping the profile of a stretch that was dug out for fishing but is unsuitable to be a functioning canal as it is too shallow & narrow for steel boats to pass each other. Although out trip-boat Dragonfly can just get through, it’s effectively a one-way stretch. Our picture [opposite page, centre] shows the Trust’s Head of Boats (yours truly) doing some depth sounding!

We are revising most of our signage, staring with the information boards we have at many places along our 72-mile line, as many are embarrassingly out of date. A fresh look is needed, and artist Marilyn Trew has injected some maps with a difference! [above]

In our MCC Branch (Melksham, Calne & Chippenham), work is now complete on restoring the walls of the dry dock [opposite page, bottom] located there thanks to various donors; the next stage is to reconstruct its roof.

Next time we hope to have our most exciting news since restoration started!

Chris Barry

Read more about the Wilts & Berks Canal in our restoration feature on page 28