The rather startling banner above greets drivers heading south east along the main road from Newent to Gloucester. Startling because most of them probably have no idea there’s ever been a canal here. But the Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal Trust plans to reinstate it (on the red dotted line shown in the aerial pic, left) with WRG help this summer. See our Restoration Feature (page 20) and diary (page 18)
See facebook group: WRG Follow us on Twitter: @wrg_navvies
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
© 2022 WRG
Chairman’s Page Mike Palmer returns 4-5 Editor a return closer to normality? 6
Practical Restoration Handbook launched 7 Coming soon latest Canal Camps news 8-9 Training book for the Leader Training Day and WRG Training Weekend 10-11 IWA Restoration Hub What is it? And what’s it up to at the moment? 12-15 Group report London WRG 16-17 Diary Canal Camps and weekends 18-19 Restoration Feature The Herefordshire and Gloucestershire Canal 20-28 Progress around the system 29-33 Navvies News will WRG NW survive? 34 Infill the editor writes his own obit 35
...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 313: 10 May.
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: With shovels for paddles, volunteers on a London WRG weekend head off over Drungewick Aqueduct to sort out a leak on the Wey & Arun. See report, page 16. Back cover: The Chesterfield Canal’s George Rogers points to the site where (thanks to confirmation of funding) there will soon be another new lock at Staveley, while (below) Cotswold Boatmobility charity’s catamaran canoes are the first craft through the newly built Ocean Railway Bridge - see Navvies 311.
I am aware that there is great irony that the last comment I generated for Navvies gave suitably maudlin reminiscences of digging activity (tea and cake, banter and laughter, a good days work, etc.) and concluded with “I’m truly missing all of that and I have never meant it more when I say I hope to see you all on site sometime soon”.
That was issue 307 (June 2021). Just a few days after writing that, I encountered something that I couldn’t stop - and I’ve been watching from the side-lines ever since. But, as we all believe (because it’s literally in our name), while recovery often seems like a dream, it is not impossible.
As such I am humbled to say that recently both the Board of Waterway Recovery Group and the Trustees of our parent body the Inland Waterways Association voted me back as WRG Chairman.
Writing a comment piece for Navvies always contains a dichotomy: which way do you look? Back at the recent past or forward to the possible future? In the end you always end up doing a bit of both.
But most importantly this comment must include some serious heartfelt thanks. Both Acting Chairman Jonathan Smith and head office’s Jenny Morris have done an amazing job of making sure all those plates I left spinning have not crashed to the ground. Not only that, but they have also spun up some much-needed new ones as well! All with the support and help from all the other Board/Committee members. And all you Navvies readers deserve my thanks as you just kept going, in whatever way the Pandemic allowed you to.
Certainly, from what I can see and hear, everyone is still keen and enthusiastic to get back on site and get back to our core role: direct practical action to recover the waterways.
We also hoped that the ‘downtime’ the pandemic gave us could be used to do the jobs that never usually seemed to make it to the top of the ‘to do’
pile, and this too seems to have been the case. The sector has had several successful funding applications (covered in previous issues and this one) and our output of support/documents/training/etc. is as high as it’s ever been. My thanks to everyone involved in this work.
It has also been the case that ‘recent events’ have caused groups to stop and consider whether structures/organisations can be improved and even the WRG Board has used its time wisely. While considering my return to the chairmanship they identified that not having a Deputy Chair was actually a weak point and so asked Jonathan to take up this role. I’m pleased to say he agreed and this too has been approved by IWA Trustees.
So, I hear you ask, what steps am I taking as I return to normality? Well it’s funny you should mention that: One of the things I have signed up for as a bit of ‘rehab’ is the Cotswold Canal Trust Canamble – a sponsored walk from Wallbridge Lock to the Daneway pub on 1 May. So while some of you will be working hard at Little Venice I’ll be pounding along the Cotswold attempting to prove my fitness for a return to digging. (A shameless plug but I have a sponsorship page which is linked from the WRG website.)
It’s not just the physical exercise I am looking forward to but there is also a bit of mental work I’m expecting too. Not just remembering all the fun I’ve had as I walk past Gough’s Orchard lock or the units at Brimscombe port. But also pondering some of the more esoteric elements of our waterways: one of the things that the pandemic has shown is just how much of an asset our waterways network is to the whole of the nation. Not just as a ‘tourist venue’ or a ‘regeneration catalyst’ – though these are of course very important – but an asset that produces benefits for all of us. As an educational or an environmental resource. They can provide training and jobs and can make a contribution to help mitigate
“The first question on everyones lips will be ‘If they are so valuable to the nation, why are there 600-plus miles of derelict ones out there?’ ”
climate change. They can provide a real focus for local communities and result in improved health (both physical and mental). Now we have known all of this for ages, but crucially the last ten years or so has generated a flurry of reports to back this up. I’ve been working with the people at Head Office to come up with an ‘umbrella’ report that brings all these themes together in an attempt to ‘elevate’ the status of the waterways network from its current niche interest to something more fitting, something that truly reflects their importance to this country.
Why should this matter to you, dear reader? Because, as soon as this vision is realised and the decision makers accept that waterways are a national asset that contributes to the richness of this nation is so many ways, the very first question that hopefully will spring to everyone’s lips will be: “If they are so valuable to the nation, why are there 600-plus miles of derelict ones out there? Surely this is a missed opportunity and something should be done about it?”
Make no mistake – the waterways (old and new, navigable and unrestored, connected and isolated) fit very well into the current talk from Government of ‘levelling up’ and ‘shared prosperity’, and we intend to make sure this point is driven home to everyone.
That’s enough of a wild rant about the future; I’ll finish off with a thank you from the past: many thanks to all who have said nice things in cards/emails/texts or supported me in so many ways. Every message helped me make progress.
Mike mentions the industrial units at Brimscombe Port, used as WRG accommodation for many happy Canal Camps but now to be removed so that the Port can be redeveloped (and the canal reinstated) The editor dropped in to pay his last respects to our former home, before the demolition contractors move in. By the time you read this it may have gone...
More good news! Look at the upper picture on the back cover of this magazine and you’ll see George Rogers, longstanding WRG volunteer and now full-time project manager for the Chesterfield Canal restoration, pointing at a rather nondescript bit of dirt-track. The caption gives a clue as to what the picture’s about: at some point in the not too distant future there will be a canal through here. And yes, it’s another good news story about the confirmation of major funding enabling an important piece of canal restoration to go ahead. In this case it’s over £5m out of the Government’s Towns Fund allocation to Staveley Town, and (together with smaller financial contributions and materials in the form of a big heap of free clay) it will achieve half a mile of complete restoration. At an equivalent rate of well over £10m per mile, that might sound rather steep, but it’s not an easy length. It involves a brand new lock (to be built roughly where George is pointing in the picture, once the dirt track and a fair amount of the ground under it have been removed), plus two new bridges including a 35m span to carry the Trans Pennine Trail over the canal, plus a huge amount of earthworks to raise the canal channel (which has been hit badly by mining subsidence) as it leads out of Staveley and onto the Puddle Bank, a large embankment across a valley.
This section represents one of three major obstacles to reopening the final eight miles from Staveley to Kiveton Park, and recreating the full 46-mile canal from the Trent to Chesterfield. The other two major obstacles are the houses built on the route in Killamarsh, necessitating a tricky diversion with new locks (or lift), and the collapsed Norwood Tunnel. But in between them are some much less badly damaged sections, and there’s every likelihood that there will still be a role for volunteers while professional contractors tackle the big engineering jobs,
The same is true on the Montgomery Canal. As we reported in issue 310 it’s been awarded £15.4 from the Governments Levelling Up Fund to carry out much of the work to reopen the length from the Welsh border at Llanymynech to Welshpool. But at the same time (see our progress pages) the Shropshire Union Canal Society’s volunteers are continuing to work on the English length from the current limit of navigationat at Gronwen to Crickheath Wharf, and have begun initial works on the next length.
At the same time, to keep the Mont restoration on track there’s also a need to rebuild the missing School House Bridge, the last bridge left to be reinstated on the English length. It’s not covered by the Levelling Up Fund grant as that only covers the Welsh length, it’s a road bridge which will need professional contractors for much of the work, and prices have been rising steeply. Hence why we’ve included an Appeal leaflet with this Navvies, asking you to contribute to raising the remaining funding to get the bridge built.
Back to normal? I hesitate to use the word, given the events of the past two years (and I’ll add the usual disclaimers about not being able to predict what the future might hold), but I think this issue of Navvies does represent yet another small step on the long road back towards something akin to (the new) normality.
For starters, events seem to be getting organised with a decent enough chance of not having to be changed at short notice that we’ve reinstated part of the Diary pages. It’s not quite back to the six-page blockbuster expertly collated by Dave Wedd that we ran pre-pandemic, but it’s a start. And as our London WRG News article shows, it’s not just about canal camps - the mobile groups are getting back to having a regular calendar of work parties. Canalway Cavalcade is back to Little Venice after two years off. There’s even talk of a Reunion / Bonfire Bash. Oh, and the ‘Infill’ page in Navvies is back! Let the good times roll!
Martin LudgateAs this issue of Navvies goes to press, the finishing touches are being added to the first section of a completely new version of the IWA/WRG Practical Restoration Handbook, a valuable resource for all those involved in the physical side of canal restoration for the last two decades, with a view to publishing it online at the start of June.
The original Practical Restoration Handbook, written in 2000, took a ‘one size fits all’ approach and attempted to address the issues from the viewpoint of all possible readers. It drew on over 30 years’ experience of waterway restoration by the Waterway Recovery Group and shared that knowledge with restoration groups so that there was no need for each restoration project to have to reinvent the wheel (barrow).
Over the past year IWA’s Restoration Hub has transformed and revamped the Practical Restoration Handbook into an enhanced toolkit which aims to guide restoration groups through the sometimes complicated world of health and safety, giving them workable solutions to undertake restoration work safely. Additionally there are links to toolbox talks, webinars, sample templates and policies which can be adapted to suit the needs of individual projects.
The entire toolkit has been designed to be web-friendly and accessible across all platforms, including mobile phones, so it can be referenced on site.
In line with current practice in industry we have now developed a two-tiered approach to delivering information, with Guidance Notes supported by a series of Toolbox Talks. The Guidance Notes have been primarily designed for people managing restoration activities, whether that be site leaders or experienced volunteers delivering a specific aspect of a project. The Toolbox Talks have been generated to enable restoration group organisers and site leaders to pass on task-related information and key safety messages to volunteers.
Whilst the 2022 Practical Restoration
Handbook is a very different animal to the original it has exactly the same aim as its predecessor – to be the “go-to resource” for all volunteers involved in waterways restoration. The new Handbook will take the form of a series of three comprehensive books:
Book 1: Getting it right from the start: Planning a Waterway Restoration Project Book 2: Right tool for the right job: Plant, equipment and Tools for Waterway Restoration Book 3: Waterway Restoration Specific Activities
Book 1 is to be launched on the IWA / WRG website on 1 June. It will consist of the following 25 guidance notes:
. Introduction to Health & Safety Law
. Preparing the Project Plan
. Construction (Design & Management) Regulations
. Preparing a Risk Assessment
. Volunteer Health & Welfare
. Behavioural Safety
. Leadership Skills
. Insurance
. Site Setup & Organisation
. Environmental Considerations
. Waste Management
. First Aid at Work & Reporting Accidents
. Temporary Works & Excavations
. Personal Protective Equipment
. Manual Handling
. Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH)
. Hand-Arm Vibration
. Working at Height
. Working near Water
. Fire & Electrical Safety
. Safety Signs & Signals
. Noise
. Dust & Fumes (Respiratory Hazards)
. Underground & Overhead Services
. Lead & Asbestos
There will also be 72 toolbox talks covering everything from toasters to Tirfors, and from litter picking to reading a risk assessment.
“...to guide groups through the complicated world of health and safety”
An update on the first proper summer Canal Camps programme since 2019 - and the latest news on some other forthcoming events
For ‘Lichfield’ read ‘Wendover’: Unfortunately some issues with permissions have meant that we couldn’t go ahead with this summer’s planned camps on the Lichfield Canals. So we’ve relocated both camps on 23-30 July and 30 July-6 August to the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal. We will be supporting the Wendover Canal Trust’s project to build a narrow vertical-sided section of new canal channel just beyond the current limit of navigation beyond Tringford. This will involve plenty of blocklaying and brickwork. (see also page 32)
A few camps don’t yet have their leadership teams confirmed. If you can help, our head office would very much like to hear from you. Also if you haven’t led a camp before (or not for a while) but fancy getting involved, see page 10 for details of our Leader Training Day. (In fact even if you’re a regular camp leader, the Leader Training Day can provide you with lots of useful help).
Booking up fast: as we go to press, a lot of the Canal Camps are already fully booked or getting that way, so if you want to go on a Camp you’ll need to hurry to avoid disappointment. If there’s no space available on a camp, you can contact head office and get your name put on a reserve list in case of cancellations.
Family Camps Return! – An October Visit To Wendover Canal After a topsy-turvy couple of years due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it has been a priority to get a full program of camps and events running again, for all to enjoy. Which is why we’re delighted to announce that we shall be making a return to the Wendover Canal, to run a Family Camp during the autumn half-term, from 28 to 30 October 2022. After fantastic events hosted at Wendover Canal in prior years, it made perfect sense to return for the restart of Family Camps.
Unlike most seven-day Canal Camps, the family camps run from Friday to Sunday and cost just £15 per person, which includes accommodation and all meals. The activities involved over the weekends are chosen to help make practical improvements to the canal and to help enhance the waterways for wildlife, plus families learn first-hand about restoring the
UK’s derelict waterways.
We will be re-visiting the Whitehouses Pocket Park, along the Wendover Canal Arm, to provide practical environmental improvements to the site, help enhance waterways for wildlife and to teach children what it is like to ‘live like a Navvy’. In previous visits we have made bird boxes, bug houses and environmental improvements to the site, and rest assured, it will be a full day of activities with fun & games in the evening time to keep the families entertained!
We look forward to welcoming families on this weekend adventure, and look forward to showing more of what we have planned in time! Keep an eye on the website to register your interest in attending, there will be limited spaces! https://waterways.org.uk/ waterways/sites/waterway-recovery-group/events
We included full details of this in the last Navvies, but just a reminder that as this issue is published the May Day holiday weekend is fast approaching, and if you’ve got some time to spare then Pete Fleming and his team will welcome any volunteer assistance at the Inland Waterways Association’s Canalway Cavalcade festival at Little Venice in London. Contact Pete at Pete.Fleming@waterways.org.uk if you’d like to help.
Normally we would hope to be announcing a site for our Reunion, a major annual working party held around the first weekend in November and a big social gathering. (Or alternatively we would be desperately trying to find a site for it...) But the last couple of years have of course been anything but ‘normal’. Whilst our Covid-19 working group have come up with extra precautions and new methods of operation which have enabled WRG to re-start canal camps (and regional groups’ weekends have also got under way again), big social gatherings have been one thing that’s had to stay off the agenda. Hence no Reunion and no BCN Cleanup for two years.
However, subject as ever to whatever the future holds as regards the pandemic, we hope to be able to hold some kind of Reunion event this autumn. Whether it’s on the traditional date (5-6 November), whether it’s a traditional big scrub-bashing weekend, or whether (for example) we might consider combining it with a BCN Cleanup type event, is yet to be decided. But in the meantime, if any canal societies out there can find suitable work and accommodation for 100-plus volunteers, please get in touch with us right away.
...and the same applies to our regular festive camp which traditionally runs from 26 December to 1 January. Again, it’s something that falls into the ‘big social gathering’ category (as well as doing lots of useful work, usually scrub-clearance) and has therefore had to take a two-year break, but we’re looking to reinstate it - if you’ve got a site for us, get in touch!
Are there practical, technical or leadership skills that you could use this summer? Find out about the Training Weekend and Leader Training Day
This is aimed both at helping to provide guidance for those who have volunteered to be part of the leadership team on Canal Camps as leader, assistant or cook, and also those who are considering giving it a go. We now have the schedule for the day’s activities:
Welcome and Intro Chairman’s Address
Essential Updates:
. Legislation and Policies
. Health & Safety, Accidents and Incidents
. Safety Talk Requirements
. Finances – Food and Floats [Tea break]
“My First Camp As Leader”
Looking after yourself and your volunteers – maintaining your Mental Health fitness. Mental Health Risks in a Camp Setting – how to mitigate them.
First Day of Camp [Tea break]
Utopia for Cooks Site Safety Training Site Environmental Awareness
Last Day of Camp Camp Reports for Navvies Summary of the day Chairman’s Final Comments
During the day a number of Leaders’ Top Tips will be given.
It kicks off at the usual time of 10:00 with bacon or similar rolls and hot drinks available from 09:00. Lunch and supper is also provided. Rowington Village Hall is available for overnights before and after the day. Feel free to stay for WRG Committee on Sunday.
Dave ‘Evvo’ Evans
WRG’s parent body IWA does a lot more restoration-related stuff besides practical work under the banner of ‘The Restoration Hub’. What’s it all about?
The Restoration Hub was formed by the Inland Waterways Association in 2017 to provide a centralised service for advice and resources, plus practical hands-on support to help waterway restoration groups based on individual waterways around the country to manage their waterway projects.
Essentially it is our quick and easy way of saying “how IWA supports waterway restoration”! The Hub Goals are to:
. Be a central point of control, helping signpost restoration groups through the challenging process of restoring a canal.
. Provide support via our panel of experts to produce up to date guidance, running workshops and free online resources.
. Organise visits to restoration groups, to be attended by appropriate experts who will offer specialist support, guidance and resources.
. Provide practical assistance through WRG Canal Camps and Regional Weekends. Volunteers administer hands on support through training in construction skills and machine operation, advise on health and safety and contribute over 40,000 volunteer hours a year towards practical canal restoration and planning.
. Campaign for the waterways restoration movement at a national level, encouraging, promoting and enabling waterway restoration to galvanise the attention and support of influential politicians, media and key stakeholders.
Technical Support: IWA’s Restoration Hub has a Technical Support Officer, Mikk Bradley, dedicated to supporting Canal Camps (for example through site visits to discuss the work with local societies) and giving advice to external restoration groups.
The start of the year has involved a lot of site visits and planning to ensure WRG’s Canal Camps are well planned and have all the appropriate paperwork in place. Mikk has also found time to support several other projects such as:
. Neath Canal – mooring post details
. Burndell Bridge (Portsmouth & Arundel Canal) – scope of works for bridge repairs
. Chesterfield Canal Trust - advice on back pumping and canal lining
. Wendover Canal Trust - general engineering advice, level surveys
. Hanwell Partnership - restoration of sideponds, IWA involvement and work parties
. Friends of Cromford Canal - preparation of cost estimate for Beggarlee extension
. Lancaster Canal Trust - advice on identifying leak
. Ashtac 50 event - review of risk assessment
If you have any queries or questions that Mikk or IWA’s Honorary Consultants could help with please contact Mikk mikk.bradley@waterways.or.uk or call 01494
The aqueduct, which carries the Tennant Canal over the River Neath, is an important historic structure and also a vital link in the proposed restoration of the Neath, Tennant and Swansea canals to create a 30-mile navigable network in this area of South Wales - but storm damage has left it in danger of collapse, and threatened with demolition as a result of concerns that it would add to the flooding risk. In August 2021 IWA’s Restoration Hub successfully applied for a CADW grant to cover the cost of a structural survey of the Aqueduct. In September Mann Williams, who specialise in creative conservation of historic buildings and structures, undertook the survey and produced a report at the end of January 2022.
The main conclusion of this investigation and report is that, despite appearances, the condition of the monument is relatively stable and in its current state repair is feasible. IWA believes urgent and immediate works should be as quickly as possible to mitigate further damage increasing the cost and complexity of repairs.
In early May IWA’s Restoration Hub, Neath & Tennant Canals Trust and CADW are planning to jointly host a site visit with all the key stakeholders (Natural Resources Wales, Neath Port Talbot Council, The Owners of the Aqueduct and Network Rail) to discuss and agree the next steps for the project in order to conserve the structure, consolidating what is currently there, so that in the future it can be strengthening and relined and revert back to navigation.
At a local level there is a growing awareness of heritage and the important of project heritage assets in the area. We believe there is a real opportunity to save this heritage asset and will continue to lead on this campaign.
Restoration Conference: This annual event organised by the IWA Restoration Hub (in partnership with the Canal & River Trust) returned to a ‘real’ format after two years of virtual conferences with an event held close to the Cotswold Canals in Stroud. To a certain extent the subject matter returned to more practical levels too. There were presentations on canal channel lining methods and materials (from traditional clay to the latest acrylic polymer impregnated geotextile liners), giving the factors for and against each type (and which we hope will be the subject of a technical article in a future Navvies); and on how the Cotswold Canals restoration has been dealing with the practical challenges facing the current Phase 1b (Saul Junction to Stonehouse) restoration scheme.
Other topics included a rundown of the latest restoration funding sources such as the Government’s Levelling Up Fund and Shared Prosperity Fund, including a case study on what went into securing the Montgomery Canal’s £15 million grant for a large part of the remaining work needed on the Llanymynech to Welshpool length.
All the PowerPoint presentations from the conference are available on the IWA website - see waterways.org.uk and click ‘campaigns’ then ‘restoration’ and ‘Reconnecting the Waterway Restoration Sector’.
Restoration Hub High Level Panel: The Restoration Hub’s High Level Panel is a key component of our work to champion restoration at a national level – encouraging, promoting and enabling waterway restoration to galvanise the attention and support of the media, influential politicians and other key stakeholders.
The Panel is made up of a small team of individuals who have experience in waterways restoration at a strategic level. Working together, members of the Panel discuss key barriers facing the waterway restoration movement in order to give feedback and strategic direction to IWA trustees on how the Association can best support restoration. Working with the Hub team they support stakeholder engagement meetings with Environment Agency, Government and waterway authorities at a national level. They are also able to offer professional advice and guidance to specific waterway restoration challenges.
The Panel have recently commissioned a report that looks at exploring the waterways’ role as a key part of our national infrastructure that brings a wider range of benefits. The report is due out in late Spring/ early summer 2022. The Panel is also looking at how we build capacity across the sector (details on the opposite page). The Panel meet 2-3 times a year. If you would like an issue to be discussed by the Panel please email jenny.morris@waterways.org.uk
The current members of the Panel are: Terry Cavender (Buckingham Canal Society); Nigel Crowe (IWA’s Heritage Advisory Group); John Dodwell (Montgomery Canal Partnership); Neil Edwards (Director of Essex Waterways); Martin Ludgate: (Editor of Navvies); Chris Madge (Derby & Sandiacre Canal Trust); Ken Oliver (Wiltshire Council - Wilts and Berks Canal); George Rogers (Chesterfield Canal Trust / Friends of the Cromford Canal); Mike Palmer (Waterway Recovery Group); John Pomfret (Inland Waterways Association Navigation Committee); Alison Smedley (IWA Senior Research & Projects Specialist); Robin Stonebridge (Chesterfield Canal Trust); Peter Walker (Canal & River Trust).
Virtual Restoration Hub – Online Resources Don’t forget you can access all of the Restoration Hub resources for free via IWA’s main website. IWA’s virtual Restoration Hub is a shared space for waterway restoration volunteers, organisations and other groups. This contains lots of useful resources, including WRG’s Driver Authorisation forms and information; series of toolkits on fundraising, safety, technical and environmental issues; Restoration TV; Details of the Annual Waterways Restoration Conference, events and workshops.
To set up a sign-on, go to https://waterways.org.uk/i-want-to-join-the-restoration-hub
Environmental Support: IWA’s Restoration Hub is also able to offer environmental support to restoration groups. Jonathan Green, a member of the staff team, has a BSc in Physical Geography and Post Graduate MSc in Environmental Change, Management & Monitoring. Please contact Jonathan if your restoration group requires advice on Wildlife and Environmental Legislation such as the Water Framework Directive, Biodiversity Net Gain, or smallscale Phase 1 Habitat Surveys and basic Preliminary Ecological Appraisals (subject to day rate/ travel costs being agreed). Jonathan.green@waterways.org.uk / 01494 783 453
Jenny Morris plus other contributions
There’s money around that could be avai lable for grants to canal restoration, but in order to take advantage of it, is there a need for “building capacity within the sector”?
Session 3 of the IWA/CRT Restoration Conference highlighted opportunities for the restoration sector resulting from the Levelling Up Fund and the Shared Prosperity Fund. But does the restoration sector have the capacity to take advantage of these opportunities? This question is key to maximising the opportunities available and delivering the most benefit from the restoration efforts.
As such, the Restoration Hub’s High Level Panel has set up a small working group to consider the questions:
(1) Is there a shortfall in capacity and/or skills to deliver restoration projects? In this question, ‘capacity’ concerns both: (a) Capacity at the planning / project development stage and (b) Capacity at the project delivery stage
(2) If so, how could the IWA Restoration Hub support the restoration sector to increase capacity and/or upskill restoration projects?
The working group is currently looking at question (1) and is seeking to talk to lots of restoration organisations at different stages of their projects in order to understand how they manage the planning and delivery of restoration works and how they resource this. As a guide, the working group had an initial session to identify some of the key areas in our experience that can be challenging or require a lot of external support (you may have others!) and came up with this list...
. Engineering design (permanent and temporary works)
Dealing with utilities
Training
Health & Safety
Funding
Legal matters
Land acquisition
Planning
Ecology
Marketing
Insurance
Strategic Alignment
Project Management
Contracts & procurement
Cost forecasting & management
Governance
Research & evaluation.
We welcome any input from restoration societies and individuals. If you’d like to share your thoughts, please contact George Rogers in the first instance.
George RogersChesterfield Canal Trust (development@chesterfield-canal-trust.org.uk)
As I write these words it’s almost exactly two years since London WRG’s canal restoration activities (and indeed the whole of the volunteer waterway restoration movement’s practical work) came to a grinding halt with the arrival of the pandemic in spring 2020. In the first of those two years we managed to run precisely one London WRG working party - a weekend camping out on the Buckingham Canal in early autumn 2020.
In the second year, since spring 2021, we did rather better - we held four weekend working parties. One was back on the Buckingham again, and the other three were all on the Wey & Arun Canal. But there doesn’t seem to be much danger of us getting bored with the W&A, as local Dave and his team always seem to manage to find us something different to do, and a different site to visit...
Our October 2021 visit was based at Tickners Heath, where the Wey & Arun Canal Trust’s latest big project has been taking shape. This is the reinstatement of the missing bridge which used to carry the Alfold to Dunsfold road across the canal near the south end of its summit level section. It’s a
complicated job involving diverting the canal so that the new bridge will cross it at a more suitable place for road traffic, and building a separate footpath / bridleway bridge alongside the road span. In a repeat of the method used for WACT’s previous road bridge project at Compasses Bridge,the basic concrete structures are being built by professional contractors while all the facings, wing walls and other ancil laries are being done by volunteers as far as possible, to bring costs down to an affordable level.
Our work included building some of the brick facing walls on the sides of the abutments of the bridge, and shuttering up for the next concrete pour on the canal channel walls.
Oh, and as I’ve mentioned in a previous Navvies, this was the first outing for the London WRG catering kit in 18 months (the Autumn 2020 dig had involved takeaway pizzas and bring-your-own lunches and breakfasts), including the discovery that when we’d put away the kit in a rush in the rain at the end of our March 2020 trip to Ironbridge this had included some leftover food. The swiss roll had turned into something quite unimaginable...
Our next W&A weekend was in March 2022, and with the Tickners Heath bridge project at an ‘in between jobs’ stage, waiting for the necessary paperwork for road closures for the next phase, we were working with WACT’s local team at Loxwood. This is the Trust’s showpiece length of canal with something like three and a half miles of canal and six locks, and home to the main public tripboat operation. Our weekend was the very end of the scrubbashing season (before vegetation control took a break so as not to disturb nesting birds). We spent Saturday clearing small trees (in particular ash trees which are suffering badly from the ash die-back fungal infection) and scrub from the
banks of the canal between Loxwood New Lock and Devil’s Hole Lock, and Sunday giving a serious trim to an overgrown thorn hedge alongside Baldwin’s Knob Lock.
A novelty for us was that the transport between the worksites for us and our tools was by the Trust’s workboat, giving several of us a chance to tick off a couple of locks that we hadn’t boated through before.
Oh, and while you might have thought we’d have learned our lesson regarding not just putting the leftover food back in the catering kit and forgetting about it, it turned out that we hadn’t - so once again there was some liquid cake and solid milk to be dealt with before the start of the weekend...
Our latest Wey & Arun weekend was at the start of April, and we were back on the Loxwood restored section again, but a different part of it and doing some different jobs. We were at Drungewick, near the new aqueduct built over the River Lox nearly 20 years ago. Here there is a rough track leading from a nearby road to a pair of slipways used for launching the Trust’s tripboats and workboats, and also used for access by a local canoeing group.
Well, it was a ‘rough track’ but now it’s considerably less rough, because one of our main jobs for the weekend was to resurface it with Type 1 aggregate - so there was a chance for our dumper, excavator and roller operators to get back in practice after a couple of years off.
Most of the other jobs involved digging post holes by hand - for replacement fencing down both sides of the track, a new waterside picnic bench being built by the slipways, and a couple of road signs.
And finally (as shown in our front cover picture) a couple of volunteers went off on a mysterious mission by boat to try to find some kind of plastic pipe thing in the canal (they did), and ascertain if it was the cause of a slight leakage problem (it wasn’t). They had to propel the boat with shovels as we didn’t have any oars or paddles - or we thought we didn’t, but then much too late to be of any use somebody lifted up an upturned coracle and found a pair underneath it...
Anyway it might not have been a typical restoration weekend but the canoeists were delighted and it’s good to have them using the canal,
as it puts some boats on the water, brings in a modest income towards future restoration work, and is popular with the local community.
We now take a break from the Wey & Arun with three forthcoming weekend working parties planned elsewhere. On 14-15 May we head for the Wendover Arm for our first visit in over a decade, a joint dig with our friends in KESCRG. We’ll be putting in the foundations for the ‘narrows’ section of new channel that the summer Canal Camps will be building near Tringford - see pages 8-9 and 32.
Next we head for the Buckingham Canal again on 18-19 June. And on 23-24 July we have our first trip to the Shrewsbury & Newport Canals since pre-pandemic. Again we’ll be carrying out preparation work for the summer WRG Canal Camps: in this case the worksite is by the north west portal of Berwick Tunnel, where the badly damaged tunnel head wall and a former shelter / hut built into it are being rebuilt.
Looking further ahead, at some time in the future we still hope to run a working weekend on the former internal canal system at the historic Waltham Abbey Gunpowder Mills. And in the meantime we’ll probably be back on the Wey & Arun before long.
New volunteers are always welcome on London WRG digs - and it doesn’t matter if you don’t live anywhere near London! (although if you do, we can usually provide transport in our WRG minibus) See the Diary on pages 18-19 for contact details.
Martin LudgateCanal Camps cost £70 per week or as stated. Bookings for WRG Camps with nu Road, Chesham HP5 1WA. Tel: 01494 783453, enquiries@wrg.org.uk. Diary c
Apr 27-May 3 IWA
IWA Canalway Cavalcade festival at Little Venice, London: site services
May 14/15 London WRG Wendover Arm: laying foundations for narrows to be rebuilt during sum (joint weekend with KESCRG)
May 14/15 KESCRG Wendover Arm: laying foundations for narrows to be rebuilt during sum (joint weekend with London WRG)
May 21 WRG Leader Training Day at Rowington: see page 10
May 22 WRG WRG Committee meeting at Rowington
Jun 11/12 KESCRG
Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal: preparation for summer at Mals
Jun 18/19 London WRG Buckingham Canal (to be confirmed)
Jun 25026 WRG Training Weekend at Tickners Heath, Wey & Arun Canal: see page 11
Jul 2-9 CC202201
Jul 9-16 CC202202
Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal Camp: building new canal chann
Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal Camp: building new canal chann
Jul 16-23 CC202203 Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal Camp: building new canal chann
Jul 23 WRG/IWA Cotswold Canals: ‘Open Day’ event at restored Inglesham Lock - detail
Jul 23/24 London WRG Shrewsbury & Newport Canals: preparation for summer Canal Camps a
Jul 23-30 CC202204
Jul 23-30 CC202205
Jul 30-Aug 6 CC202206
Jul 30-Aug 6 CC202207
Aug 6-13 CC202208
Aug 20-27 CC202211
Aug 21-28 CC202212
Aug 28-30 IWA/WRG
Sep 3-10 CC202213
Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation Canal Camp: repairs to Stonham’s W
Wendover Arm Canal Camp: (moved from Lichfield) rebuilding channel
Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation Canal Camp: repairs to Stonham’s W
Wendover Arm Canal Camp (moved from Lichfield): rebuilding channel
Lapal Canal Camp: laying towpath and connecting path in Selly Oak Pa
Wey & Arun Canal Camp: starting work on construction of new liftbridg
Shrewsbury & Newport Canal Camp: rebuilding tunnel entrance and as
IWA Festival of Water at Burton on Trent: site services team, volunteer
Swansea Canal Camp: restoring lock chamber walls at Trebanos
Surrey Hills Wood Fair: running ‘drive a digger’ fundraising with Wey & Sep 10-17 CC202214
Sep 10/11 KESCRG
Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal Camp: restoring lock chamber walls at Sep 17-24 CC202215
Swansea Canal Camp: rebuilding overflow weir at Ty-Coch Locks
Oct 1/2 KESCRG (possible) Wey & Arun Canal: new liftbridge Birtley
Oct 28-30 Family Camp
Wendover Arm: Family Canal Camp at Whitehouses Pocket Park - see p
umber e.g. 'Camp 202201' should go to WRG Canal Camps, Island House, Moor contributions to Dave Wedd. Tel: 07816-175454, dave.wedd@wrgbitm.org.uk
support camp Pete Fleming pete.fleming@waterways.org.uk mmer Canal Camps Tim Lewis 07802-518094 london@wrg.org.uk
mmer Canal Camps Ed Walker 07887-568029 ed@edwalker.eclipse.co.uk 01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk 01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk swick Ed Walker 07887-568029 ed@edwalker.eclipse.co.uk Tim Lewis 07802-518094 london@wrg.org.uk 01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk nel and culvert at Malswick. Led by KESCRG01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk nel and culvert at Malswick01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk nel and culvert at Malswick01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk s to be confirmed01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk at Berwick Tunnel Tim Lewis 07802-518094 london@wrg.org.uk eir01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk ‘narrows’ section01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk eir01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk ‘narrows’ section01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk ark01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk ge at Birtley01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk
sociated structures at Berwick Tunnel01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk s wanted for children’s ‘drive a digger’ activity01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk 01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk
Arun Canal Trust Ed Walker 07887-568029 ed@edwalker.eclipse.co.uk
Trebanos01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk 01494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk
Ed Walker 07887-568029 ed@edwalker.eclipse.co.uk page 901494-783453 enquiries@wrg.org.uk
The 2022 WRG Canal Camps programme marks our first visit to the Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal Trust’s major new project to create a brand new length of canal at Malswick. But it isn’t WRG’s first involvement in the H&G Canal by any means – as those volunteers who remember the Over Basin project and other earlier work will recall...
The restoration back-story The H&G was one of the later restoration projects to get started – largely, I suspect, because it had been closed so early and parts of it had been so thorough trashed after its closure (pretty much the entire south eastern half of the route was used as the basis for the Gloucester to Ledbury railway line) that it wasn’t seen as feasible to restore. “Nobody is going to restore it”, said Ronald Russell, writing in the classic derelict canal explorers’ bible Lost Canals and Waterways of Britain in 1982, while David Bick, writing the standard history of the canal in 1979 said it was more lost in obscurity than any other major navigation in England.
But come 1983 and the Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal Society (it later changed from Society to Trust) was founded – if not actually aiming to reopen the canal throughout, then at least with the goal of opening up some short lengths and preserving some of the few surviving structures to give an impression of what
the canal would have been like when it was working.
Given that they didn’t initially envisage full reopening, there was no reason to attempt to follow a logical programme, starting at the Gloucester end and working north westwards to Hereford. But in all honesty, the state of the canal meant that wouldn’t really have been an option anyway. Whatever their long term plans, they needed to find a length that was restorable by a newlyformed volunteer group with modest resources.
So they began on the Hereford to Ledbury length (the half of the canal which hadn’t been used for a railway line), and their first worksite was at Monkhide, roughly midway between Hereford and Ledbury, where a rural stretch of canal hadn’t been too badly damaged, the landowner was a canal society member, and there was a very unusual surviving structure to restore. This was the Skew Bridge, which has the distinction of being possibly the most acute skew bridge in the country. And nobody really knows why it was built like that –
it carries such a tiny country lane that it wouldn’t have been an issue to put a couple of sharp bends in the road and cross the canal at right angles. Maybe the engineer Stephen Ballard did it simply because he could!
By 1987 a length of canal had been
restored, and the bridge had been cleared of creepers – and given Grade II listed status. By this point some of the members were thinking that reopening the canal might be possible as a long-term target – and one of them thought it might be a good idea to ask well-respected canal historian Charles
Length: 34 miles
Locks: 23
Date closed: 1881
The Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal had the misfortune to be begun during the Canal Mania, when the success of some of the early canals led to a rush of speculative construction of waterways, some of which turned out not to be very profitable at all; but not to be completed until the Railway Mania, when canals had begun losing trade to the newer form of transport.
A not par ticularly promising route as regards trade (it didn’t go through anywhere industrial) meant that a canal from the Severn at Gloucester to Hereford was unlikely to be wildly profitable. Unfortunately its prospects were made even worse by a decision to change the route to go via Newent (rather than following the River Leadon valley all the way to Ledbury) in the hope of serving a small new coalfield. The coal tur ned out to be very poor, the diversion added a long tunnel at Oxenhall, and all the money to build the canal had been spent by the time it reached Ledbury.
However an enthusiastic young man named Ste phen Ballard joined the canal company and convinced them that if they could somehow raise the money to g et to Hereford the canal would be a success. It got there in the end, but it was never busy, and soon railways were threatening its trade. The company made the best of a bad job by selling out to a railway company who closed the canal in 1881 and used parts of the Gloucester to Ledbury length as a route for a railway line. The railway in turn closed in 1959, apart from the Gloucester to Newent section which carried freight for another five years.
Hadfield for his view. His response was that like the Thames & Severn, the Wey & Arun and the Grantham, it was a hopeless case, and like these it would end up as a hobby for “a few dozen enthusiasts who potter around in wellies” pretending to be doing good when actually all they were doing was “to inflate their egos”. Thus encouraged, the H&GCT duly took up the cause of full reopening of the canal, and in 1990 the first local authority supported this goal by protecting its part of the route. Two years later this protection was tested by a proposal to build a new Hereford bypass road, the Canal Trust made a very good case for including a navigable culvert where it crossed the canal, and won the argument with the Department of Transport. The road wasn’t built (and still hasn’t been), but if and when it is, there will be a canal bridge. And a few years later when an existing road bridge at Roman Road on the edge of Hereford needed replacing, it was replaced with a full navigable sized concrete culvert. Meanwhile practical work on the ground had begun on the south eastern (Ledbury to Gloucester) length too, on a section near Newent where the railway diverged from the canal for a few miles (mainly to avoid Oxenhall Tunnel), leaving some better preserved remains of canal channel and structures. They still weren’t exactly well-preserved, as the first regular visiting working parties by WRG and the other mobile groups found when they adopted House Lock at Oxenhall as a project under the Dig Deep scheme (an initiative by the mobile
groups to commit to a certain amount of work between them on particular projects, as a way of enabling the Canal Trusts to commit to funding the work). This ran through the mid 1990s and saw the entire stone-built lock plus its bywash completely rebuilt. This length became a focus for work, with the towpath opened through from the tunnel mouth to the edge of Newent, and later the
It was still very much a ‘work wherever you can’ type of restoration, but in 1999 it became more of a case of ‘work where you have to’ – because at Over, where the canal joined the River Severn on the edge of Gloucester, a housing development was planned which required a major input from the canal society and visiting volunteers, to a tight timescale. On a former hospital site, the
and the other buildings demolished and replaced by new houses by a housing developer. But under a Section 106 planning agreement negotiated by the Canal Trust, in return for being given permission or the development, the developer would donate the land containing the first length of the canal to HGCT. And the Trust’s side of the bargain was that they had to complete the restoration (actually more like new construction) of the canal’s entrance basin including a lengthy wharf wall, the approach to the former entrance lock, a trailboat slipway, landscaping and various other works – and all within 18 months of being allowed on site. Failure to do so would have resulted in the land being forfeited to the developer, to do what they liked with (quite possibly, to bulldoze the whole lot on the grounds that it would be easier to sell houses if there was a piece of flat land there rather than a halfcompleted canal restoration site resembling the Somme in places...
Bad weather, terrible ground conditions and various delays getting started turned what was always going to be a challenging project into a near-impossible task, but with a massive input of labour from WRG and other visiting volunteers (including a whole series of ‘unofficial’ week-long camps and numerous extra weekends) plus the Trust’s own teams, the construction work was completed with a couple of weeks to spare – and
in September 2000 the opening formed part of WRG’s 30th anniversary celebrations.
Having completed what was necessary for the S106 agreement, work then moved elsewhere again – almost to the very far end of the canal. At Aylestone, on the edge of Hereford, a new park was to be created –and the restored canal would be a feature of it. Once again visiting volunteers including WRG provided a useful contribution to the labour, including creating a slipway allowing trailboat events to take place in the completed park. And at Kymin East, between Aylestone and Monkhide, some heavy scrub and tree clearance took place including a WRG reunion dig in 2012.
Back at Over, more than a decade on from the original opening the Canal Trust began the Vineyard Hill project, extending the basin by recreating the next length of canal. This was the subject of a couple of very successful WRG specialist machinerybased camps in 2012.
This quick canter through the last four decades has mainly concentrated on the volunteer projects, and especially those that Navvies readers would have been interested in working on. But at the same time, HGCT was using its expertise at dealing with planning authorities to ensure that other canal restoration or reinstatement work was taking place wherever possible as part of developments along the line of the canal. These
have included a retail park in Hereford and a housing estate at Dymock among others, and there will be more to come – see below.
Where are we at? Starting at the Gloucester end, we have the Over Basin and its extension at Vineyard Hill – although as yet it isn’t connected to the River Severn. There then follow several miles of canal from there northwards, which have yet to be tackled, and about which the most optimistic thing to say is probably that at least the railway (now itself long disused) which was built on parts of the route has helped to preserve some kind of possible alignment for restoration. But then it gets a bit more hopeful, with one section already reinstated and another at Malswick where work is just beginning, as we shall see.
Reaching Newent, there’s a rather tricky section where the town bypass, the former railway, and the old canal briefly all coincide, then there’s an awkward crossing of the Newent to Ledbury road where the levels are all completely wrong for reopening the canal. But then begins the stretch from the former Newent Station site via Ell Brook Aqueduct and House Lock (and two more locks still to be restored) to the south portal of Oxenhall Tunnel –which has the potential to become a showpiece
length of restored canal.
The tunnel itself is in a bad way at the northern end, and parts of the bore are unlined, but the southern part is reckoned to be in better condition. It will be expensive, but is likely to be restorable rather than needing a replacement. And it conveniently gets the canal under the M50 motorway.
The surviving northern approach cutting leads northwards to Dymock, site of the reinstated length mentioned above, then the canal (and its replacement the railway) runs
through generally quiet country with few road crossings to the outskirts of Ledbury. Here, part the original route through the town (which included several locks which have disappeared under the later railway line) has been blocked by housing, but for a long time H&GCT has envisage the restored canal taking an alternative route around the west side of Ledbury alongside the bypass road, either running adjacent to the little River Leadon or perhaps actually sharing its course – and some of the bridges appear to be big enough for navigation.
To the north of Ledbury another new housing development looks set to provide a new length of canal to link up to the original route. From there onwards there are some substantial surviving remains of the canal including a three mile length that’s still in water and includes surviving bridges and a tunnel.
A missing section (including the A417 crossing) is followed by the first length to be restored at Monkhide, including the famous skew bridge plus another bridge (also built on the skew, but not by quite so much). On the far side of another main road (the A4103) needing a new crossing, the restored length continues through the Kymin East site, where the first lock leading downwards from the summit has seen some exploratory excavation.
There’s another tricky length (a missing aqueduct over the River Lugg and bridge under a railway – but Cotswold Canals Trust has recently shown that these things are by no means insuperable) but then comes the final length into Hereford, which has seen a lot of progress and looks set for some more. The new Roman Road bridge is followed by the restored Aylestone Park length and then by a section at Holmer which will be made available to the Trust for restoration as part of a housing scheme. Aylestone Tunnel survives, and is followed by the retail park development mentioned above (including two new canal bridges). As the canal approaches the town centre there is another planned development which looks likely to create a length of canal as part of the planning agreement, then a length already owned by the Trust, then yet another development site with the potential to re-create a section of canal, and finally a possible new terminus basin on an adjacent site to the original one.
So what next? The next major volunteer project is the one that WRG will be working on at this year’s Canal Camps – the Malswick length just south east of Newent. Here the original line of the canal has disappeared under the old railway embankment. But rather than dig this out and reinstate the
canal on its original route, it will actually be less work to build a brand new channel on an adjacent alignment. After a lengthy local authority planning application processinvolving a bat survey, a slow-worm survey, a newt survey and all the rest – the Trust got planning permission late in 2021 for work to start on building this.
Some preparatory work has already been done, but the Canal Camps will be doing a lot of the work, including not just the major muck-shifting to create the channel, but also installing two large (1.8m diameter) concrete culverts to carry streams under the future canal. All being well, the canal could be in water by 2023.
And then what? At the same time as the volunteer effort is creating the new channel at Malswick, HGCT is also looking to make progress in the future at several other sites along the length.
We’ve already mentioned the developments which (with associated S106 or similar planning agreements) could see the reinstatement of several lengths of canal in Hereford. This could potentially create a navigable length leading from the town centre terminus right out into the countryside beyond Roman Road Bridge at Aylestone.
But there are a couple of other sites
where H> is also looking to make some progress in the medium term future. Firstly there’s the entrance lock from the western channel River Severn at Over. This was a very deep lock (the structure was something like 9m deep altogether), and still only accessible from the rather tricky tidal river at certain states of the tide, and it would need re-connecting to the navigable eastern channel of the Severn by reinstating either the lock at Maisemore Weir or the one at Llanthony Weir. Yes, the entrance lock could be restored (it would actually be more of a new structure than a restoration) and boats could make their way via Llanthony or Maisemore locks, but the Trust is looking at whether there is a better alternative. These could take the form of:
. A ‘level crossing’ of the western channel, with the entrance lock restored and another lock created on the opposite bank. The new lock would lead into the start of a new canal length running across the ‘island’ between the eastern and western channels, ending at a junction with the eastern channel opposite Gloucester Lock
. An aqueduct over the western channel of the Severn, leading straight into the new canal cut across the ‘island’ formed by the eastern and western channels, leading to a junction with the eastern channel opposite Gloucester Lock
The
around the bridge and station
Finally, at Newent, the Trust has been considering the options for the tricky crossing of the Ledbury road. The problem here is that whereas the canal originally passed under the road via a hump-backed bridge, the later railway crossed over the road on a metal girder bridge. Trying to reinstate the original arrangements would fall foul of modern highways requirements regarding sight-lines over new bridges. But the alternative of using the old railway bridge abutments to install a new aqueduct (and making the old railway station a feature of the canal!) would put the canal at a very difficult level from the point of view of water supplies and extra locks needed.
Newent road crossing: an inclined plane boat lift could span the gap
So HGCT has come up with an alternative – an inclined plane boat lift to carry boats up, over a bridge, and back down on the other side. This could be a ‘conventional’ (I hesitate to use that word in connection with a boat lift!) inclined plane, with tanks or (more likely) cradles running on railway tracks, hauled and lowered up and down the slopes on cables. But alternatively it could use concrete slopes with something more akin to the tractors and trolleys sometimes used by boatyards to pull boats up slipways for work. Given that the lift will slope down from the road bridge to the canal in both directions, the ability to shunt the tractor around the trolley at the top might make it easier than a rail-based system.
It’s still likely to be something of a long haul to get the canal open all the way from Gloucester to Hereford, but if HGCT can manage to pull off the ideas described in the last few paragraphs, there’s really no reason why they can’t put paid to the notion that “nobody is going to restore it” once and for all.
Shrewsbury & Newport Canals Trust volunteers reached a major milestone on 5 February, when the 101st (and last) concrete slab was cast over its polythene liner in the East Basin at Wappenshall, the junction where the Shrewsbury Canal and the Shropshire Union Newport Arm (the ‘Newport Canal’) meet. Started on the 26 September 2020, the team have done an amazing job to complete this part of the restoration of Wappenshall Wharf because the pandemic, material shortages, floods and some extreme weather conditions have conspired to make it very challenging indeed.
The majority of these slabs were 5.25m long x 2.5m wide and 150mm thick and contained reinforcing mesh. Most concrete pours involved 8-10 cubic metres of mix-onsite concrete being transported in a dumper truck, tipped into the timber formwork, spread with spazzles, vibrated with a petrol driven concrete vibrator, then finished off with a heavy timber tamp. I think that doing this work improved the whole team’s fitness levels, as it was very heavy, physical work. Thanks must go to our Project Leader, William Jones, who used his wealth of experience to ensure the job was done correctly and that all the levels were right.
We now move on to finishing the brickwork on the top third of the basin’s newly built northern retaining wall; installing two escape ladders; re-pointing the existing stone and brick basin walls; installing an electric pump that will initially fill, then maintain, water levels; and replacing rusted bolts with stainless ones to hold the iron rubbing strakes to the lock walls.
Once these jobs are completed, we will re-water the basin. This is planned to be done in the autumn.
The Shropshire Union Canal Society’s volunteers are pressing on towards Crickheath - but meanwhile more funds are needed for School House Bridge
The Shropshire Union Canal Society (SUCS) has been involved with progressively restoring the channel of the Montgomery Canal between Redwith and Crickheath since 2008.
The current project is to extend the channel from Pryces Bridge to Crickheath Winding Hole, which will form the temorary terminus when the next length of canal is reopened from the current limit at Gronwen.
Dambusting Volunteers Triumph: The main task for the early March Shropshire Union Canal Society (SUCS) work party volunteers was to remove a massive clay bund (dam) which was towpath high and six metres wide; it retained the water in the previously restored 250 metre section at Pryce’s Bridge. This water and a massive accumulation between the bund and Crickheath Wharf took just over two days to pump out sufficiently to allow the blocks, and four layers of liner that had waterproofed the inside slope of the bund, to be taken down.
The bund had to be removed to allow
the completed 250 metres to join the 330 metre section under construction at the correct depth. When a length of channel is lined with four layers of waterproofing materials, it is then ‘paved’ with building blocks to weight down these materials.
On the Saturday it was just about possible to begin removing blocks and liner from the inner slope until the base of the channel became visible as the pumping out continued. The working conditions were, at worst very, very, challenging, and, at best difficult, with sometimes a foot of water in some places, but the 17 volunteers kept battling on with the dirty heavy work.
By Saturday afternoon the removal of the Bund had begun using a large digger and a dumper to transport the clay away, and by the close of play on Sunday three quarters of it had disappeared.
Whilst the pumping out was taking place on Friday, 400 saplings were planted along the base of the outer edge of the towpath embankment to stabilise a section of the of the newly constructed canal channel. Lengths of heavy lining material were
cut to size and laid along the offside of the channel in preparation for completing the next 60 metre section
Channel shaping can now take place to match the new section under construction to the existing completed profile.
All in all, this was a superb effort by a very dedicated team of volunteers working the terrible conditions and a significant amount of preparation was achieved.
Volunteers returned at the end of March, and this time the weather was very kind, which contributed to another very productive four days of hard work for the 26 that took part.
As a result the channel is now a continuous curved line, joining the previously
lined and blocked section from Pryce’s Bridge to the current section under construction.
The first task of this work party was to pump out the vast volumes of collected water in the channel being restored, so that the remaining third of the bund could be removed.
Other tasks included painting the four storage shipping containers, in a vibrant green, to protect and maintain them. Many tonnes of soil were power-barrowed along the tops of both sides of the of the length of canal being restored, and spread down the outsides of the banks to promote grass and vegetation growth.
It is anticipated we will complete the work to Crickheath and re-water the canal by the end of 2022.
The progress report on these pages describes Shropshire Union Canal Society volunteers’s recent work on lining the length of formerly dry canal from Redwith to Crickheath, which is approaching completion and will enable the canal to reopen to boats as far as Crickheath Wharf.
But meanwhile work has already begun on the sections beyond Crickheath. SUCS volunteers have cleared vegetation to allow assessment of the next 200 metre phase to be restored. The old Tramway Wharf will be reconstructed as will the wash-walls. A survey of the canal channel from Crickheath Bridge to the site of School House Bridge has been commissioned by CRT to enable towpath levels and the working depth to be established.
At the same time, advanced plans are in place to rebuild the demolished School House Bridge in 2022 which is a project being run in parallel by the Restore The Montgomery Canal group. It’s a public road crossing, so the main construction work will need to be done by professional contractors. Initial work began in September 2020, but rising costs have meant that the public Appeal to fund it needs to raise more cash for the work to be completed.
This is the last road blockage still to be dealt with on the English length leading to where the canal crosses the Welsh border at Llanymynech. It’s a crucial part of the restoration - especially given that major funding has recently been agreed for the next section leading onwards into Wales.
So we’ve included an Appeal leaflet in this issue of Navvies - please consider giving something to the Appeal.
Meanwhile The Wendover Canal Trust are dealing with a tricky leakage problem, planning to build a narrows, and installing a memorial bench
The narrows: Wendover Canal Trust’s main activity for the next few months, will be to construct a narrow section of canal (a “narrows”). This will be just beyond the current limit of navigation for boats visiting the canal at the Little Tring winding hole, which we built in Phase 1 of the restoration, opened in 2005. This narrows is necessary to prevent wider boats trying to go any further, since they would not be able to pass any other boat as they go through our relined channel. We have been carefully excavating next to the winding hole, to expose the end of the Phase 1 concrete walls and lining.
Ash removal: Just next to the excavation site, there was some ash (from when the canal was filled in with domestic waste) to remove from the site of the planned narrows. Chemical Analysis last year had determined that most of the ash has been found to be non-hazardous (including all the ash
removed last month). A small amount of ash in a specific location was found to include a higher lead content. All this material, six lorry-loads, was removed for processing at a site near Peterborough. We are not planning any further ash removal in the near future.
Margaret’s Bench: Overlooking this winding hole, there has for some time been an oak tree. This was planted by Margaret Leishman, the wife of our Vice President Roger, who for many years was our Restoration Director. In Margaret’s memory, Roger has now sponsored a bench alongside the oak tree. This is a lovely location to remember Margaret.
Re-watering from Bridge 4a to 4: Our ongoing work has not yet explained the water loss in this section where we have completed the channel lining. Our volunteers have been checking levels most days even when there isn’t a work party. There are some signs that the rate of water loss has reduced, though we don’t know why this should be. Relining remains temporarily paused.
Narrows: A lot of rain on the first day made conditions difficult. But by the end of the week ground conditions had improved so much that 23 dumper loads (about 4 lorry loads) were successfully removed.
Around the edges of this hole, we did a lot of manual digging to separate the last of the ash from the coal tar layer (dating from an early attempt to waterproof the leaky canal bed) underneath – we have to do this so that the ash can be sent away uncontaminated with coal tar. This ash, and any clay we dig out which is not contaminated with coal tar, is stacked in separate piles near the road ready for removal, while anything with coal tar in it is added to the existing separate piles. Being this careful will save us a lot of money in spoil removal.
Unexplained water loss Bridge 4a to 4: Our ongoing work has not yet explained the water loss in this section. We drained it down as far as possible ready for some work. We’d like to know whether one end is losing more water than the other, so this month in the bed of the canal in front of Whitehouses, we constructed temporary block walls either end of the concrete canal bottom (see picture below). We will now be able to put some water back into this section, and find out whether Bridge 4a to Whitehouses is losing more or less water than Whitehouses to Bridge 4, or even whether the loss is at Whitehouses itself.
Constructing these temporary block walls took much more effort than it sounds, because all materials including well over a hundred heavy concrete blocks, had to be transported along the towpath for the second half of their journey, using a trolley and wheelbarrows. Finally the blocks got a special treat, a slide down a scaffold plank from the towpath into the canal!
Clive Johnson Wendover Canal Trust
Our North West regional group’s future is in serious doubt as a result of lack of sufficient volunteers, and is calling a meeting to decide whether to continue or to close the group down. The following is from the North West e-newsletter:
Last time I asked for guidance as to the number of recipients of this newsletter who would participate in digs going forward. I got just six replies even though I know of a similar number who are likely to do but still didn’t reply. This is not sufficient for a viable group.
There will therefore be an ad hoc meeting in Manchester on 17th May to discuss what, if any, future there is for WRG North West. At the moment it looks as though the answer, sadly, is that there isn’t.
The meeting will be open to anyone who wants to attend and we would welcome the widest possible participation. Please contact me for details or to express a view if you can’t attend.
Malcolm Bridge 07956-944489 malcolm.bridge@gmail.com
In the last couple of years we’ve mentioned Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) a few timesbasically it’s the idea that any ‘development’ needs to include nature conservation measures that increase the overall biodiversityand it’s in the process of becoming a legal requirement in the UK.
It can affect canal restoration in two ways: firstly because much canal restoration work counts as ‘development’ in itself (so the requirement for BNG could be seen as yet another thing that hinders canal restoration); and secondly because it’s possible that nature-friendly canal restoration could provide the necessary BNG or adjacent commercial development (so conversely it could help canal restoration). Anyway the Inland Water-
ways Association has a BNG group which has been following the progress of implementation of mandatory BNG into law these past few months. As of November 2021, the Environment Act was passed by the House of Commons, and the process has begun for developing the framework for its implementation. By late 2023, the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 is likely to be amended and from that point, delivering BNG will become a mandatory part of planning permission. The BNG Working group are following what shape this takes and what opportunities it might provide for improving and restoring our waterways.
The BNG Working Group has also recently defined its three core goals:
(1)Promote canal restoration as a tool for biodiversity net gain at a national level (2)Promote the advantages and opportunities of biodiversity net gain to restoration societies (3)Identify requirement for (and develop) resources to enable implementation of biodiversity net gain in the restoration sector
These goals will be the main driving point for the work of the group moving forward. If you or your canal restoration group wants to find out more about BNG, contact the IWA Restoration Hub.
We’re planning on having a WRG Canal Camp cooks’ drop-in online (Zoom) session, probably sometime just prior to the 20th May Leader Training Day (see page 11).
The idea will be to answer questions, help with any concerns, discuss issues, and basically anything else to encourage potential new cooks to ‘take the plunge’ as well as helping existing cooks.
We don’t have any details just yet, but check the WRG Facebook page and website, or get in touch with Jenny Morris at head office on enquiries@wrg.org.uk or 01494 783453.
OK actually he’s been resting in peace for quite a long time already - two and a half centuries, to be exact. Yes, 2022 marks the 250th anniversary of the death of James Brindley, by far the most famous engineer of the early part of the canal-building era in Britain, involved in almost all of the canals being planned or built during the 1760s and early 1770s. But you don’t want to hear about him from me, you want to hear about him from the resident poet at the Chester Courant newspaper, responsible for this spectacularly badly-written 1772 epitaph...
JAMES BRINDLEY lies amongst these Rocks, He made Canals, Bridges, and Locks, To convey Water; he made Tunnels for Barges, Boats, and Air-Vessels; He erected seve ral Banks, Mills, Pumps, Machines, with Wheels and Cranks; He was famous t’invent Engines, Calculated for working Mines; He knew Water, its Weight and Strength, Turn’d Brooks, made Soughs to a great Length; While he used the Miners’ Blast, He stopp’d Currents from running too fast; There ne’er was paid such Attention As he did to Navigation. But while busy with Pit or Well, His Spirits sunk below Level; And, when too late, his Doctor found, Water sent him to the Ground.
It would be hard to beat that, but I can’t help thinking that it might be worth a try. Rather than risk tempting fate by writing the obituaries of well-known WRG folks while they’re still alive, I’ve restricted myself to penning the first few lines of my own obituary:
MARTIN LUDGATE lies beneath this Stone, He made Jokes to make you groan, He published Restoration Features, And Toolbox Talks by the best of Teachers; He wrote London WRG Reports, And laid Bricks (while wearing Shorts)...
The door opened at the last WRG Committee meeting and a woman and small child entered.
Woman: I think I’ve come to the wrong place. This isn’t a 3-year-olds’ party, is it? WRG Committee: Well...
Just occasionally those of us who spend our lives writing about canals find ourselves struggling to come up with something nice to say about a less-inspiring length of waterway. But no such concerns troubled the author of this 1930s canoeing guide to Scotland (spotted by the editor on the WRG North West sales stand) when it came to saying what he really thought about the maginificent Caledonian Canal at the picturesque small waterside town of Fort Augustus...
“The town of Fort Augustus is a collection of melancholy-looking houses, built upon a slope at the foot of Loch Ness. They once had a companion with some pretensions to liveliness but Gordon Cumming died, and passengers can no longer pass the dreary hour occupied by the steamer in going up or down the locks, as the case may be, by inspecting the trophies of that mighty Scot. There is a dearth of foliage in the neighbourhood; the hills are not striking; the locks, though useful, are an eyesore; and if there be any residents, they probably behave quietly, but the fact of my having arrived at this place on a fast day will account for the vagueness of my notions respecting it. Fort Augustus is neither particularly clean, well situated, cheerful, nor handsome, and I doubt whether it ever produced a favourable impression upon the mind of anyone. My only pleasurable emotion in connexion with it, was the feeling that the long lake with its spindrift, spray, short sharp rollers, and rough shores ended there.
After the grand scenery on Loch Ness, that portion of the canal between Fort Augustus and Cullochy, a distance of about five miles, is comparatively dull...”
there are already boats through here!
there are already boats through here!
