IWA Shrewsbury District & North Wales Branch
Shroppie Fly Paper – February 2025
Shroppie Fly Paper - February 2025
Newsletter of the Shrewsbury District & North Wales Branch
From The Steerer
Readers subscribed to Canal & River Trust’s Notices service will doubtless be all too aware of the damage to our waterways caused by the winter’s extreme weather and, in particular, Storm Darragh in early December.
The Shropshire Union Main Line and the Llangollen Canal were badly hit, with most of the damage coming from fallen trees blocking the navigation. At Woodseaves Cutting, often prone to disruption in bad weather, multiple fallen trees and landslips have obstructed the navigation; the scale of the damage necessitating an almost nineweek closure of this busy route.
Away from the topical dramas involving named storms, obstructed navigations and disrupted cruising, autumn and winter has found the branch focused on the incredible progress of the restoration volunteers at Crickheath, as they drive the Montgomery Canal further south (some say it’s west) towards Llanymynech.
Later in this newsletter you’ll read of our very successful winter walk and social lunch for members and friends, when we explored the repairs needed to the Vyrnwy Aqueduct, went to the sites of the first two ‘dropped’ bridges in Wales and explained the rebuilding plans that will allow boats to pass below the road bridges once more.
This was, to a certain extent, a reprise of the visit to Llanymynech in early October by the Northern Canals Association, an event that gave us and others from different parts of IWA the opportunity to meet representatives from no less than 14 waterway restorations. For after all, reviving lost canals has always been at the heart of what IWA does; today IWA’s Restoration Hub is a focus for support for groups like these across the country.
‘What IWA Does’ also includes the Fund Britain’s Waterways campaign and IWA’s Sustainable Boating Group; both are important for the future of our waterways and can really only be promoted by a national membership organisation – that’s us.
Important in terms of pollution and removing carbon emissions, for us locally, sustainable boating can help safeguard the Montgomery’s legally protected flora and fauna. Increasingly the restoration has to counter voices claiming there’s a build-forboats-first strategy for the canal which should be replaced by a nature-first strategy. The restoration group points to the long-existing Conservation Management Strategy (CMS) and believes that the revitalisation of the canal can both protect the canal’s valuable natural and built heritage while including the limited number of boat movements foreseen under the CMS, as well as bring the other social and economic benefits of a healthy and functioning canal.
Boaters can help. If you visit the Montgomery Canal, please respect the ecology and travel carefully, avoiding wash, silt disturbance and dirty water discharge from your boat as much as you can. Please remember that there are people who would like to take the canal away from us, wasting the millions already invested and the commitment of so many volunteers over so many years.
Contents
2025 Calendar dates for your Diary
Winter Walk 2025
2025 Branch AGM
Gnosall Towpath Restoration
Restoration Round-up – Wappenshall Wharf
Ticket to Ride – George Watson Buck and Llanymynech Canal Wharf
2025 Calendars – Special Offer
Restoration Round-up – Montgomery Canal
Fund Britain’s Waterways – Starting 2025
More News from the Monty
Branch Steering Team and Situations Vacant
2025 Calendar Dates for your Diary
• April 4: Montgomery Canal Forum, Newtown
• April 5: Branch Annual General Meeting, Aqueduct Marina (see below)
• May 3-5: Norbury Canal Festival – volunteers needed!
• July 19-20: Gnosall Canal Festival (C-Fest)
• August TBC: Lock wind, Cholmondeston Lock – volunteers needed!
• August 30-31: Whitchurch Canal Festival – volunteers needed!
To register an interest in volunteering to help us at any of these events, please email phil.tarrant@waterways.org.uk with your availability
Winter Walk 2025
Branch chairman Mike Haig reviews the latest successful adventure along our towpaths.
The last time we organised a winter walk along the Montgomery Canal was in January 2023, when we set off from Canal Central at Maesbury Marsh on a very wellattended walk to inspect the progress being made by Shropshire Union Canal Society restoration volunteers towards Crickheath basin, before we moved on to what was then the site of the proposed Schoolhouse Bridge reconstruction.
What fantastic progress has been made in the intervening two years! The navigation to Crickheath basin was formally opened in June 2023, and throughout the autumn and winter contractors Beaver Bridges turned the New Schoolhouse Bridge, as Google Maps likes to call it, into reality, with that formal opening – at least for road traffic – taking place in June 2024.
This year, once again defying dismal weather forecasts, we decided to adopt and adapt the Montgomery Canal restoration – past, present and future theme of the Northern Canals Association’s autumn visit to the Welsh border.
Almost 30 of us assembled at the Dolphin Inn in Llanymynech for an illuminating, and thankfully dry, morning walk along the towpath to Vyrnwy Aqueduct, with expert commentary from our SUCS, MWRT and Friends of the Montgomery guides.
Members and friends were treated to on-site explanations and graphics of the plans to deal with the two ‘dropped’ road bridges at Carreghofa Lane and Williams Bridges, and admired the work of a previous generation of restorers who brought Carreghofa Locks back to life in the 1980s. As an interesting QI-style factoid, we also learned that the highways department at Powys council flattened the Williams Bridge road crossing to block the canal to boats while restoration of the nearby Carreghofa Locks was actually taking place!
After a fine restorative lunch at the Dolphin Inn, those keen for an afternoon excursion had a choice between a visit to Llanymynech Canal Wharf and the trip boat George Watson Buck, or a view of the present state of restoration at Crickheath,
where the length southwards (westwards?) at the Tramway Wharf is now holding water.
Our grateful thanks go to our expert guides, the volunteers at Llanymynech Canal Wharf, and all the cheerful team at the Dolphin Inn. I wonder what we would see if we did it all over again every couple of years – navigation to the next winding hole at Waen Wen by 2027 and connection at the Welsh border by 2029?
2025 Shrewsbury District & North Wales Branch AGM
Notice is hereby given for the 2025 Annual General Meeting of the Shrewsbury District & North Wales Branch of The Inland Waterways Association, provisionally to be held on Saturday, 5 April 2025 at 1.00pm at Aqueduct Marina, Church Minshull, Nantwich CW5 6DX
Note: both the date and the venue are subject to change, which will be notified to members, together with further details of the Annual Members Meeting, by email as soon as possible.
AGENDA
• Apologies for absence
• Minutes of the 2024 AGM were approved by email by those present on 9 May 2024
• Matters arising from the minutes
• To accept and take any questions on the Treasurer’s and Chairman’s reports (to be circulated in advance of the meeting)
• Election of committee members
• Any Other Business
Any resolutions requested by members of the branch should be notified to the branch chairman at least six weeks prior to the AGM.
• Committee member Phil Tarrant, co-opted after our 2024 AGM, offers himself for election.
• Committee member Alan Wilding stands down at the end of his current threeyear term and offers himself for re-election.
More details about the AGM will be circulated by email closer to the date.
We warmly welcome other members willing and able to help out on our team, whether as regular or occasional volunteers. Please contact branch chairman Michael Haig or any other member of the committee if you would like to help us.
Gnosall Towpath Restoration (GTR)
GTR volunteer Martin Wright keeps us up to date on improvements along the towpath in Gnosall:
Way back in November 2024, one of our new volunteers, with a flair for garden landscaping, took no time at all to convince us that our herb garden needed a makeover.
Over several Saturday mornings, volunteers cleared at least two bulk-bags of vegetation per session from the garden. Vegetation waste was wheelbarrowed to one of the many GTR composting stores dotted along the towpath.
While not on the grand scale of BBC’s Garden Rescue (no poorly installed gravel walkways here, thank you very much) the newly designed planting scheme will flourish in springtime, bringing pickable herbs such as mint, chives, thyme, parsley and sage all within easy reach of the towpath.
Autumn into winter is the time of year when our GTR working parties feel like déjà vu or Groundhog Day – leaf sweeping time. It's one of those jobs that's strangely satisfying and frustrating in equal measure; no sooner have you cleared a stretch of towpath than it’s covered in leaves again! If déjà vu is your thing, then you'll love sweeping up and removing leaves from the towpath.
It takes an average of seventy-two hours to keep on top of leaf fall during leaf sweeping season (mid-October through to early December).
[The herb garden before getting some TLC. Credit: GTR]
Sadly, time has caught up with the steps at bridge 35a (the railway). The railings have rotted at ground level and fallen over, and the wooden steps have rotted to the extent that they no longer resemble steps. Due to their condition, repairing them is probably not possible and a replacement is more than likely required. Whilst this activity is outside of GTR’s responsibility, we are discussing a resolution with Staffordshire County Council.
Since our towpath resurfacing efforts over the winter of 2023/4, the many tons of stone laid has found its natural level leading to high and low spots along the path; low spots fill with rainwater becoming muddy over time. Throughout February and March, GTR will be looking to repair the towpath, where practical, by building up those low points to make them less prone to attracting water. Canal & River Trust have kindly agreed to provide us with suitable materials, and you’ll see bags of stone appearing at various places along the towpath over the coming weeks and in advance of the ground being prepared, please don’t move them. Of course, you'd be very welcome to join one of our working parties to help maintain the towpath.
If you are inspired to help keep the towpath looking loved, tidy and presentable then please visit the GTR website here: https://www.gnosallparishcouncil.org.uk/gtr or contact us at gtr@gnosallparishcouncil.org.uk
Volunteers meet, weather permitting, most Tuesday and Saturday mornings at 10:00 on the towpath by the Navigation Inn pub. On Saturdays, they also welcome those young people working towards their DofE award.
Restoration Round-up – Wappenshall Wharf
Shrewsbury & Newport Canals Trust chairman Bernie Jones on progress over the autumn and winter (reproduced with kind permission from S&N News, Spring 2025).
The terribly wet weather during the autumn storms made for difficult working conditions at the Wharf. Trees blown down, torrential rain filling trenches dug for wall footings, and much debris blown around the site and into the East basin. It also made painting the exterior of the buildings, doors, windows and staircase almost impossible. But, with determination and amazing enthusiasm the team has battled through and significantly progressed the project.
The stable block has been completed with the roof in place, 7 stable doors fitted, all 6 internal walls built, power and lighting installed, guttering fixed in place and roof flashings added. All tools and equipment were moved from the shipping container into the stables and the container will shortly be sold.
The “temporary” toilet block (there since 2009!) has been donated to the Stafford Riverway Link project as a token of our appreciation for the immense amount of work, assistance and advice their volunteers have provided to us. The new toilets are now in use with a fully functioning sewage plant.
By the time you read this the café kitchen will have been installed in the small warehouse and all internal doors will have been fitted. The final internal painting will have been completed too.
The last major job is the car park. This will require the current reinforced concrete to be taken up and replaced with permeable block paving. This is to meet changed Building Regulations that require surface water to be absorbed, rather than run off to attenuate any flooding risk. Doing this work at this time of the year will be challenging. But, if we are to get the café open in the spring or even summer, we have no choice but to get on with it!
Ticket to Ride – nb George Watson Buck
Volunteers at Llanymynech Canal Wharf who offer boat trips on the Montgomery Canal between England and Wales have launched a new Season Ticket for 2025.
The ticket gives the ticket holder and up to three guests unlimited travel on the short section of canal from Llanymynech Heritage Area and is an ideal way for local people and visitors to support the community trip boat operated each summer.
The wharf visitor centre is open between 1.30 – 4.30pm on Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays from Good Friday until the end of September each year and is a popular destination for visitors to the area as well as many local families. Light refreshments and ice creams are always available.
The new 2025 season ticket costs £50 and is available to purchase online or at the visitor centre during usual opening hours.
Graham Deakin, chair of the volunteer group that runs the visitor centre and boat trips, explained: “We wanted to offer a ticket option for the boat that would allow people to come back and visit several times over the summer without breaking the bank, so our new season ticket is ideal for families and friends.”
As well as the season ticket, the group offers single boat trips at £5 per adult and £2.50 per child.
The group running the Llanymynech visitor centre and George Watson Buck trip boat merged with the Montgomery Waterway Restoration Trust in 2024. The group has recently recruited several new members – it is now planning to refurbish the boat and has been looking for donations
A generous family donation, received through the Branch in memory of a former IWA member, Graham Kenneth Broadbent, is enabling them to make a start by refitting the galley before trips start again at Easter, and further grants towards
refurbishment have been received from Llanymynech & Pant Parish Council and Carreghofa Community Council.
The group also wants to recruit volunteers to join the friendly team and to crew, skipper and maintain the boat.
The boat itself is a 45ft, 12-seater narrowboat built in 1998 by staff and apprentices of JCB Ltd under the guidance of the famous boat builder, Simon Piper. When finished, the boat was loaned to a number of charities, but eventually she ended up on the newly restored section of the Montgomery Canal at Llanymynech.
In May 2005, the new visitor centre at Llanymynech was officially opened and the boat was renamed George Watson Buck after one of the Montgomery Canal’s early engineers from 1819 to 1833.
There’s limited parking available at the wharf and in the village of Llanymynech. Find out more on https://themontgomerycanal.org.uk/llanymynech-canal-wharf where you will find a local location map and link to buy the season ticket.
