Where
Where
We haven’t quite got our 2023 Canal Camps programme confirmed yet (see disclaimer, page 4) but we are close enough that we’ve included a preview of the likely sites (see pages 8-13). Alongside the regular favourites are these three which offer something a bit different: the Louth Canal (top), the Neath Canal (right) and the Stockport Branch of the Ashton Canal (bottom). See you there in ‘23?
For latest news on our activities visit our website wrg.org.uk
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, George Eycott, Emma Greenall, Helen Gardner, John Hawkins, Dave Hearnden, Nigel Lee, Mike Palmer, George Rogers, Jonathan Smith, Harry Watts.
ISSN: 0953-6655
PLEASE NOTE: subs renewal cheques MUST be made out to The Inland Waterways Association NOTE new subs address below
...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 317: 10 January.
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: The Wey & Arun Canal near Loxwood has been a regular site for the London WRG, KESCRG and WRG Forestry mobile groups during the autumn, cutting back vegetation to keep a restored length clear as well as dealing with dieback-infected ash trees. See our feature focusing on the southern mobile groups on page 14 (picture: Martin Ludgate) Back cover: The water is let into the Montgomery Canal ready for the April 2023 opening - see our Progress pages (picture: SUCS)
...on likely sites for 2023’s Canal Camps; weekend groups’ weekends; a canal opening; and the difference between “shortly” and “forthwith”
The editor’s disclaimer...
It’s been not unknown over the past couple of years for this column to begin with an editorial apology for something which I’d promised was about to happen in the previous issue, but which has in the meantime evaporated in the between-issues gap. And as often as not, that ‘something’ was ‘a programme of canal camps’, as Covid and other unforeseen circumstances conspired to screw up our carefully laid plans.
Well I’ve now learnt my lesson so this time, by way of a change, I’m getting my apologies in first in the form of a disclaimer: Nothing in the Canal Camps Preview in this issue is set in stone, or even in fairly weak-mix lime mortar. Basically (like last year) it has taken a little longer than usual to nail down all the details with the various canal societies and trusts that we work with (usually regarding accommodation, local authority permissions, funding and other things that they may have no control over - please don’t think I’m accusing the trusts of dragging their heels). As a result, we are unable to put together our usual camps booklet giving full details and timings of the year’s week-long canal camps in time to include it with this issue and get it to you before Christmas.
So rather than leave you with no information and having to wait until the next issue in February (or possibly an extra mailing in between issues) to find our where we’ll be working this year, we’ve put together a
Canal Camps Preview feature giving as much information as we can (including some of the sort of background information that we don’t have space for in the camps booklet about the restoration projects) on the seven ‘front runner’ sites that are likely to feature in the programme, followed by four more that we’re really hoping will also feature. We can’t promise that any one of them will be in the final programme, we hope that all of them will, and we’re pretty sure that most of them will.
But it isn’t just about week-long Canal Camps. There are plenty of other opportunities for volunteer work whose dates have already been confirmed. Several of the regional mobile groups have already put together most of their programmes of weekend working parties for 2023 - and we’ve included a special feature on three southern groups on pages 14-16. They’re going to be having a big impact on sites including the Wey & Arun and Cotswold canals this year, and they welcome new volunteers on any of their working parties.
And we’d be happy to report on what the other groups are up to in the next issuewhy not write something for us?
And as we’ve often pointed out, there’s a lot more to volunteer canal restoration than WRG and other mobile groups. As our Progress section shows, the local canal societies’ own working parties have been busy. And if I can draw your attention to one of them, it’s our old favourite the Montgomery Canal. It’s coming up for 20 years since the last time a new section of restored canal was reopened - from Queen’s Head via Aston Locks (scene of so many WRG camps in the 1990s) to Gronwen Bridge. The Shropshire Union Canal Society’s volunteers have just been putting the finishing touches on the last part of the length from Gronwen Bridge down to Crickheath Wharf, ready for an official opening in April 2023. And in the wider world of waterways? I’m afraid that there’s still no news as we go to press about the decision on future public funding of the Canal & River Trust’s navigable network post-2027, which (if it either ends or is significantly cut) could put the whole system at risk. At a parliamentary debate on the topic, MP and waterways supporter Michael Fabricant asked the Defra Minister to at least provide a timing for the decision, “and not just ‘shortly’. please”. The Minister Rebecca Pow replied, helpfully offering “forthwith” instead. And finally I’m not going to get away without an apology. I’m sorry this issue is a bit short.
Martin Ludgate
MKP on why we don’t have a confirmed Canal Camps schedule for 2023 yet, and what exactly the ‘recovery’ bit of our name signifies...
This December-January edition of Navvies is the one that usually carries our Canal Camps booklet for the following year. And I know that, for some of you, it really did form part of your Christmas ritual – take time away from the melee of Christmas festivities and read up on what we would be doing in the following year and start to ponder which of the promised events seemed the most attractive.
And then start to plan all the practicali ties – applying for holiday, planning the travel, thinking about the skills that you could learn at the Training Weekend, contacting your friends to see who might be interested in joining you, etc.
So it is with regret that I have to inform you that your annual ritual will have to be delayed by a month or so. Don’t read too much into this. There are no big ‘issues’ or ‘showstoppers’. In fact if I have one message to give to you all it is that the WRG Board believe that 2023 is going to be busy year with lots of activity and, in the middle of all that activity, a decent number of Canal Camps.
“Why no confirmed Camps schedule then?” I hear you ask. Well the annual schedule is a collaborative thing between WRG and the local societies that host us. While we all are still coming out of the pandemic and heading towards our ‘new normal’ it’s just an unfortunate fact that the timeline is not lining up with the December Navvies press date. We would love to think that Canal Camps is something you could just switch back on but that is just not the case, it’s a careful ‘ballet’ of dates, permissions, skills, leaders, village halls and task planning.
But we are not quite so cruel as to take away every bit of your Christmas ritual and so Martin has constructed an article that could be titled ‘2023 Perhaps’. It’s like a Camps brochure but, in much that same way that every Camp in the Camps brochure contains the clause “this camp may be cancelled due to circumstances beyond our control”, this ‘preview article’ has the clause “you know what, this Camp may not even run in the first place!”. So please feel free to have that Christmas ponder about what might take your fancy in 2023, It’s not just about restoring
you’ll just have to wait a bit longer before you find out if your dreams are going to come true.
One final comment on this situation: I’ve been involved in this whole ‘setting out our Canal Camps store for the next year’ exercise for multiple decades. The list that Martin has worked from represents some really great work on some really great sites – 2023 is not the year to decide to give Camps a miss and go trekking in the Himalayas!
Hopefully I’ve reassured you that Canal Camps are going to be part of 2023, I only have one final piece of news. It can’t have escaped your notice that, at least according to some reports, the cost of living is rising. Unfortunately many of those rising costs affect the basic Canal Camps operation: food, fuel, PPE, energy, accommodation, etc. So the WRG Board, having carefully reviewed the accounts for all the Camps this year, have taken the decision to raise the cost of a week’s Camp from £70 to £80. This decision was not taken lightly, but it’s the first price rise in many years.
But that is enough about our day to day activity – how about raising the bar a little and going for “what work should we be doing?” or even “where should we be doing that work?” Well for those Navvies readers with a long memory these next statements should not come as too much of a shock but I still think they are worth restating now, as a memory jog to the ‘longer in the tooth’ reader and perhaps an education to our newer readers. The common understanding is that the main business of WRG is canal restoration. But let’s just pull that apart shall we?
Firstly it’s Waterway Recovery Group – so we are not just limited to canals but all waterways. That’s the easy bit, next the recovery bit: I’m told that ‘recovery’ was deliberately chosen over the seemingly more appropriate ‘restoration’ option because our founders felt that all waterways could be worthy recipients of our helpful efforts whether already navigable or not. Now anyone who has taken part in a BCN Clean Up shouldn’t be too surprised by this – that’s an attempt to ‘recover’ a waterway from a somewhat neglected state to the state we believe all waterways should be in. The fact that it’s a navigable waterway doesn’t mean it can’t be recovered to a better state. A similar comment could be made for the Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation, and that’s why we work on it.
Now I can imagine that the more cynical Navvies readers might be thinking “Why is Palmer suddenly rabbiting on about this? Has he sold out to the Canal & River Trust or something?”
Well don’t worry –that’s not the case (but there may well be an interesting project coming up that is on a navigable CRT waterway), it’s just that I think It’s worth spending a little time correcting these misconceptions.
Finally, mentioning the WRG founders must unfortunately include the sad news of the death of Jim Woolgar this September. Looking around I see much for Jim and his family to be proud about. Hugs and kisses, Mike Palmer
By the time the next Navvies is published we should have a proper Canal Camps programme. But here’s a sneak preview of where we’re likely to be going...
So has WRG got a great programme of week-long Canal Camps all ready to go for 2023? Well, the short answer is “no”, I’m afraid. The slightly longer answer is “not yet, but we’ll definitely have one in time for the camps booklet to be included in the next issue of Navvies, and we might well have it sorted a fair bit earlier than that.
But the much longer (about six pages longer, in fact) answer is that although like last year we’re running a little later than we have in the past when it comes to getting a programme confirmed to the point of publishing a diary of camps, we’ve got a sufficiently good idea of which projects we’re likely to be supporting that we can publish this ‘pre-preview’.
Without being able to make any promises that all of these will feature in the final list (or, indeed, that any others won’t be added), we’ve put together this preview of the sites which are looking likely to feature in the 2023 Canal Camps programme, plus some more that we’re very hopeful of being able to add.
And even if some of these sites don’t make it into the programme for the coming year, you can be pretty sure that our volunteers will be working on them in the not-too-distant future in the 2024 Camps programme or on the regional groups’ weekend working parties. And we’ll start off with two that we haven’t worked on for a long time, if at all...
The Canal Camp work: taking down and rebuilding damaged brickwork, repointing and vegetation removal on the chamber and wing walls of the wonderfully named (and scalloped-sided) Ticklepenny Lock
The restoration: the Louth Navigation Trust’s long-term aim is to reopen the entire waterway, a 12 mile part-canal part-river route which linked Louth in Lincolnshire with the mouth of the Humber. The Trust has restored the historic Navigation Warehouse at Louth, restored the towpath, and carried out maintenance and remedial work on the surviving lock structures.
The Canal Camp work: various possible tasks on the Resolven to Glyn-Neath length, including building an overflow weir, reinstating coping stones on an aqueduct (pictured) and bridge, reinstating lock footbridges, bank protection and vegetation clearance
The restoration: the Neath & Tennant Canals Trust has in the past restored some significant lengths including the Resolven to Glyn-Neath section. However there has been concern over the management of this length by the local authority responsible. A new volunteer group, the Ty Banc Canal Group, has recently been formed with the aim of promoting and enhancing the canal, and has identified the above potential WRG tasks. Ultimately the hope is to open Neath Canal and Tennant canals, and link them via a new connection through Swansea Docks to the Swansea Canal, also under restoration
The Canal Camp work: building the fixed structure for the second of two new swingbridges to carry footpaths across the canal at Birtley, near Bramley
The restoration: In its long-term plan to restore the entire through route from the River Wey to the River Arun (and so provide a link from the canal network to the south coast) the Wey & Arun Canal Trust has concentrated on certain ‘showpiece’ lengths including the Loxwood Link section and the summit at Dunsfold.
It is now working to create another restored length nearer to the north end of the canal, south of Bramley. The new bridges will form part of this plan, as well as opening up a network of local footpaths linking to the canal Another of these needed: building the first liftbridge in 2019
The Canal Camp work: restoring the second chamber wall at Geldeston Lock
The restoration: The River Waveney is part of the Broads, and navigable as a tidal waterway to Geldeston. In the past, three locks enabled boats to carry on up to Bungay. There are no plans to reopen this length, but the old lock at Geldeston is a historic structure, was in danger of collapsing, and could have a new role as a place to display the last surviving former trading wherry - the type of sailing barge which was used on the Broads.
The Canal Camp work: two likely sites, each of them with one or more dedicated camps: carrying out the first stage of a project to restore / rebuild Westfield Lock near Eastington and reinstate the aqueduct / culvert carrying a stream under its top end; and putting a stream culvert under the canal near the rebuilt Weymoor Bridge, Latton
The restoration: the Cotswold Canals Trust is committed to reopening the through route from the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal to the River Thames. It has broken the project down into ‘phases’ to be tackled in sequence, but at the same time it will work on other projects if opportunities arise. The Westfield Lock project is a vital volunteer contribution to the Lottery-funded ‘Phase 1b’ section which will see ten miles reopened from Saul to near Brimscombe within three years. By contrast the Weymoor culvert is away from the main focus of restoration, on the Inglesham to Cerney length identified as ‘Phase 2’, but follows on from an ‘opportunity’ which arose when a bequest was left to the Trust specifically to rebuild Weymoor Bridge.
The Canal Camp work: creating a new footpath ramp to link the towpath to a restored bridge in Selly Oak Park, south of Birmingham
The restoration: the Lapal Canal Trust aims to eventually restore the abandoned length of the Dudley No 2 Canal which once extended from the current terminus at Hawne Basin, Halesowen, to reach the Worcester & Birmingham Canal at Selly Oak. In the medium term they would like to restore the better preserved Selly Oak end of the canal, and as an initial aim to open the canal into Selly Oak Park. Work is already under way on creating a new turning basin and junction, a route through a Supermarket development has been reserved and part of the canal constructed, and a new road bridge built. The proposed Canal Camp work builds on work carried out on previous camps to improve the canal in Selly Oak Park, and repair the towpath through Selly Oak Park Bridge
The Canal Camp work: creating a pathway through a woodland copse at Darnford Lane, on the east side at Lichfield
The restoration: Lichfield & Hatherton Canals Restoration Trust plans to recreate two ‘missing link’ canal routes which connected the surviving length of the Wyrley & Essington Canal in the northern Black Country to the Coventry Canal and Staffs & Worcs Canal respectively.
A focus for much of its effort recently has been several sites around Lichfield, including Tamworth Road, Fosseway Heath and more recently Darnford Lane, where WRG supported the Trust many years ago when they created a liftbridge, a culvert, and a piled length of canal channel. As well as creating a local amenity, our work will tie in with funding recently secured to restore an adjacent length of canal, and with alterations to the canal where the HS2 railway crosses it nearby, improving the prospects for opening this end of the canal in the not too distant future.
The seven sites that we’ve described on the previous four pages are the ones that (as Navvies went to press) appeared to be the front-runners in terms of getting all the details, permissions, accommodation and so on sorted out and dates agreed on for them to go ahead - although as I said earlier, nothing was absolutely confirmed as happening. Here are four more which we also very much hope to support with Canal Camps this year, but where preparations hadn’t quite the same level of readiness to go ahead. But as with all of the projects in this preview, we definitely see ourselves working there sometime soon...
The Canal Camp work: Continuing building a new canal channel at Malswick
The restoration: The Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal Trust is working to reopen the canal all the way from the River Severn on the edge of Gloucester to Hereford.
Lengths have been restored along the line including Over Basin (Gloucester), Oxenhall, Monkhide, Kymin East and Aylestone near Hereford.
Keen to see some progress on the Newent to Gloucester section, the Trust began recreating a length of canal al Malswick in 2022, not on the original site (which is obstructed by an old railway embankment) but on a brand new route
The Canal Camp work: Likely to be either working on a lock restoration at Sandiacre or a lock and channel walls at Borrowash
The restoration: The Derby Canal once linked the Trent & Mersey Canal at Swarkestone via Derby to the Erewash Canal at Sandiacre. The Derby & Sandiacre Canal Trust aims to reopen the whole route, but as the length in Derby has been built on, it will be bypassed by a new length of canal, while a boat lift called the Derby Arm will transfer boats to a length of the River Derwent, which will provide a link into the city centre.
So far restoration work has mainly concentrated on the Derby to Sandiacre section, which is where both of the proposed work sites are situated
The Canal Camp work: likely to be continuing with channel construction work
The restoration: the Wendover Arm of the Grand Union Canal was built largely to supply the main line of the canal with water from springs near Wendover - although it was also made navigable to serve the town. But unfortunately the porous chalky ground of the Chilterns meant that it proved very difficult to keep it watertight. Soon it was leaking so badly that it was costing the canal more water than it was supplying - and eventually the canal company gave up and piped the water.
This means that reopening the canal involves major reconstruction work to line the canal channel so that it will hold water - and Wendover Canal Trust has been working on this for some 20 years. Our 2022 Camps were spent creating a brick sided ‘narrows’ where the new channel joins up with the existing restored section near Tringford
The Canal Camp work: Scrub and tree clearance on the route of the canal
The restoration: Manchester & Stockport Canal Society aims to restore the Stockport Branch of the Ashton Canal in east Manchester. The branch was abandoned as recently as the 1960s when all efforts were going into saving the main line of the canal from dereliction and reopening it as a through route and part of the Cheshire Ring. Unfortunately since then parts of the branch have been built on, but the northern section survives unobstructed with the towpath use as a footpath and cycleway. MSCS has been carrying out clearance work with a view to eventually reopening to navigation as much as possible of the branch MSCS carry out a litter-pick on the line of the canal
It’s not just about week-long Canal Camps. The regional groups are getting back into planning weekend volunteer work in advance...
Regional groups’ weekend working parties are back...
Well, actually they’ve been back for a while. But we haven’t had much news of forthcoming weekend working parties by WRG’s regional groups and the independent mobile working party groups in Navvies since they stopped working when the pandemic struck. And part of the reason (certainly in the case of London WRG and the other southern groups) is that generally they’ve been planning their work on rather more of a short-term ad hoc basis since then, so we’ve rarely had much information about planned working parties in time to publish it in Navvies.
But all that looks like it’s changing - at least in the case of three groups in the south. So here are details of what London WRG, KESCRG and NWPG will be up to in 2023...
This is WRG’s region group in the south east, although as with all the mobile groups it attracts volunteers from all over the southern half of the country and sometimes further afield. New volunteers are always welcome, and if you do happen to live in London we can provide transport to and from our weekends in a WRG minibus (except when the vehicles are all in use on Canal Camps duty in the summer). To find out more and to book your place on a weekend, either see the London WRG Facebook group (we have a Facebook ‘event’ for each working party) or contact Tim Lewis on london@wrg.org.uk 07802 518094. Here are our forthcoming weekend ‘digs’...
14-15 January Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation: An outing to ‘our very own navigation’ - the Chelmer & Blackwater is run by Essex Waterways, a subsidiary of WRG’s parent body the Inland Waterways Association. It doesn’t receive any regular public funding, so although it doesn’t need restoring (it’s fully navigable and regularly used by boats),it does rely on a fair bit of volunteer support to keep it well maintained. We’ve yet to confirm the accommodation and work for the weekend, but in the past it’s often involved vegetation control and towpath improvement / maintenance.
18-19 February Cotswold Canals: The Cotswold Canals used to be a regular venue for the weekend groups but has been a bit ‘between projects’ recently. However work is now starting on Westfield Lock (aka John Robinson Lock) whose restoration will be the main volunteer input to the current Lottery-funded programme of work to complete the restoration from Saul Junction to Stonehouse. The lock was largely buried but work began recently on excavating it: there will be a lot of work there over the next year, with a culvert / aqueduct to be built carrying a stream under the canal in addition to the rebuilding of the lock itself. We’ll probably still be on the uncovering / dismantling stage. Accommodation for the weekend is at Saul Memorial Hall.
25-26 March Shrewsbury & Newport Canals: This will be a joint weekend with our friends from the WRG Forestry team and KESCRG. We’ll be clearing small trees and extracting roots with Tirfor winches on a new site within walking distance of our regular accommodation, Uffington Village Hall. It’s not a large hall, so we’ll have to cap the numbers - although we can take more people if some of them bring tents / caravans as they did last time we went.
10-11 June Wey & Arun Canal: Another joint weekend, this time with our friends in KESCRG. The Wey & Arun Canal Trust have a project to build a new swingbridge at Birtley lined up as a summer Canal Camps site, so we may well be working on that too.
16-17 September Wey & Arun Canal: Whether we’ll be continuing on from the summer camps work at Birtley or getting back into autumn scrub-bashing, we’ll know nearer the time
2-3 December Wey & Arun Canal: Yes, we really have already booked our joint Christmas scrub-bash and party with KESCRG a whole year in advance!
There will be more dates to fill the gaps in the above schedule: we aim to go out every three or four weeks. See future issues of Navvies or our Facebook group for the latest.
KESCRG originally stood for ‘Kent & East Sussex Canal Restoration Group’, but (like London WRG) they come from all over the south of England and beyond, and welcome anyone from anywhere on their weekends.
Contact Ed Walker ed@edwalker.org.uk for details or to book on a weekend, or find the KESCRG Facebook group. The following are their dates...
4-5 February: Cotswold Canals, Westfield (John Robinson) Lock
4-5 March: Cotswold Canals, Westfield (John Robinson) Lock
25-26 March: Shrewsbury & Newport Canals, joint dig with London WRG and WRG Forestry
6-7 May: Venue to be arranged, possibly Wendover Arm
10-11 June Wey & Arun Canal: A joint weekend with London WRG. The Wey & Arun Canal Trust have a project to build a new swingbridge at Birtley lined up as a summer Canal Camps site, so this weekend may be working on preparation for that.
15-22 July: Provisional date for KESCRG/WRG Camp, likely to be on the Wey & Arun Canal
2-3 December: Joint Christmas scrub-bash and party with London WRG on the Wey & Arun Canal
The third of the inappropriately named regional groups in the South began life as the Newbury Working Party Group, but like the other groups its volunteers come from all over the place these days and they welcome new recruits from anywhere. They haven’t confirmed sites for their 2023 working parties yet, but they plan to work on two sitesWestfield (John Robinson) Lock on the Cotswold Canals (see above under London WRG) and a site on the Wey & Arun which is currently awaiting planning permission.
NWPG unearth the remains of Westfield Lock on the Cotswold Canals
11-12 March Venue to be arranged - Wey & Arun or Cotswold
21-23 April Venue to be arranged - Wey & Arun or Cotswold
8-15 July Week-long NWPG/WRG Canal Camp - Wey & Arun or Cotswold
20-22 October Venue to be arranged - Wey & Arun or Cotswold
18-19 November Venue to be arranged - Wey & Arun or Cotswold
Those aren’t the only mobile groups still operating - we’re happy to include details of what WRG BITM, NorthWest, Forestry or anyone else is up to - just tell your Navvies editor about it
Our specialist Forestry Team brought their chainsaws to bear on the dieback-infected ash trees of Sussex’s canalsides. John Hawkins reports...
Our main summer Canal Camps programme may have come to an end some time ago, but we do have one Camp Report in this issue – thanks to our specialist WRG Forestry Team, who generally work outside the summer nesting season, and hold their annual week-long camp in the autumn. This year it was on the Wey & Arun Canal, where the waterside trees have been suffering badly from the dreaded Ash dieback disease. John Hawkins reports…
On Friday late afternoon / early evening folks started to arrive for the Forestry Camp in readiness for a good start on the Saturday morning.
By Friday evening the trailer and van were unpacked, items checked and arranged in Kirdford Village Hall, our accommodation for the week. There followed a general safety talk and some ‘pointers’ for later discussion on site.
Saturday morning: on site, when all had gathered for the week, we had a site safety talk by Dave Evans
(no, not WRG’s Dave ‘Evvo’ Evans - the Wey & Arun Canal Trust’s own Dave Evans!); and a site walk – a long site a little north of Loxwood Lock to Devils Hole Lock, just on the Sussex side of the Surrey/Sussex border and on part of the ‘Loxwood Link’ restored length used regularly for WACT trip-boat operations.
The work was mainly the removal of some overhanging / dead oak branches, dense areas of brambles, and Ash trees affected by Ash dieback disease.
WACT machinery available for use was a fairly new 5-tonne JCB excavator fitted with a grab and a very neatly fitted tow-ball (more of which later), a chipper and a 13tonne excavator. The Trust had also hired in a MEWP (mobile elevating work platform) - a great machine. A couple of work boats and the ‘Aquadock’ floating pontoon dock were also available.
Saturday and Sunday work was mainly around the Devils Hole Lock, felling some dead trees and cutting into specified lengths: these also had to be fairly straight. They were then stacked in readiness for later collection. The remaining branches and brash were either burnt, put into piles for habitat or put to one side for logging. All of the following days were spent on other sections of the canal, both towpath side and offside.
The MEWP was put to good use removing several quite large branches that were in danger of falling onto passing boats. This operation also involved the use of the larger excavator, putting a strop around the branch to be cut so that it could be removed from the water. An ‘interesting’ operation with both machines working together. Some of these sections were then put through the chipper.
Meanwhile, on the towpath side, ash trees were being felled and dragged out for stripping and cutting to length. If they were too large/heavy the excavator was put to good use. The cut lengths were put to one side.
The main group of volunteers then moved further along the towpath so that Dave could ‘tidy up’ the cut lengths. A short four-wheeled trailer was attached to the aforementioned tow-ball, then using the grab the cut lengths were placed in the trailer. This progressed along the towpath gathering the cut lengths and thus forming one main
Length: 23 miles
Locks: 26
Date closed: 1871
The Canal Camp project: Removing dead branches, dense brambles and ash trees suffering from ash dieback on the Loxwood Link restored section of canal.
Why? This section has been restored to navigation and is the base fo the Wey & Arun Canal Tr ust’s trip boats, as well as the towpath providing an attractive local walk. It therefore needs to be kept clear of potentially dangerous dead or dying trees and branches.
The wider picture: The Canal Trust aims to reopen the canal to through navigation from the River Wey to the River Arun. It has already opened several sections including this one through Loxwood, and others on the summit at Dunsfold, and near the southern end - and is looking to link these together and to further sections (including at Bir tley, planned site for next summer’s camps). Keeping the existing restored lengths safe and well looked after enables local people to enjoy them and is important for raising public support and funding to achieve these long term aims.
Birtley
larger stack, instead of several small ones. At the end of the week the plan was for a large trailer to be towed along the towpath by a tractor fitted with a Hiab, to clear all the large stacks. All of this wood (about 30 tonnes worth) was bought by a company to go for processing into biomass.
Mid-week onwards: whilst all the other jobs continued, a bridge was formed by using a work boat and the pontoon dock so
that a group could cross to the off-side bank where there were several large ash trees that needed to be felled. All along the side of the canal there were dense areas of brambles that needed to be cleared in order to give a safe escape route for the chainsaw operators. These trees could only be felled into the field. Unfortunately it was not possible to get the machines into the field to clear the timber. The plan was to drag them across the canal by using the excavator and then for them to be logged as necessary. As well as clearing the floating debris the work boat was put to use for this operation. Unfortunately the engine on the boat was overheating and so other methods had to be used in order to get the boat across the canal so that we could join the chains that were on the larger excavator to the large slings that had been put around the items to be moved. The cabin end of the boat was manoeuvred into place by using the excavator and the front end was moved by using the Mk 1 bow thruster (otherwise known as a keb!) and the boat securely tied to any convenient tree stump…
And finally Many thanks to all for all the work over the week, whether it be on site or back at the Hall. And a large “thank you” to the weather god; who would have thought that many people were working in t-shirts (well, and also some other PPE!) during October? And the rain that fell was mainly overnight.
John HawkinsSNCT’s work to create a canal centre and showpiece restored length at Wappenshall has them rebuilding walls and installing sewage tanks...
The Shrewsbury & Newport Canals Trust’s work at Wappenshall Junction (the transhipment point and associated basins and warehouses where the Shrewsbury Canal met the Newport Arm of the Shropshire Union) suffered a setback at the end of August with the discovery of willow tree roots that had grown through the existing east basin wall at the bottom of our next door neighbour’s garden.
The very heavy coping stones had to be removed from the top of the wall and the next two courses of stonework were taken down, then the whole thing was completely rebuilt. To ensure the roots do not find their way through the wall again and cause water to leak out of the basin, an 800mm deep trench, 300mm wide, has been dug behind the wall and filled with concrete to act as a barrier.
This work has set us back about a month, but we have still managed to:
. Get a lot of the brickwork re-pointed on the small warehouse
. Replace all the iron fenders at the entrance to the skew bridge next to the stop gate
. Complete the new brickwork to the top of the new retaining wall
. Install two escape ladders and handrails to enable anyone that falls into the re-filled basin to safely get out
. Break through the concrete floor of the Romney Building to dig the hole for the sewage treatment plant and associated tank
. Dig the trench for the footings of the stable block wall.
The sewage treatment plant consists of 3 polypropylene tanks that must be lowered into a rather deep hole (about 3m deep). This creates more challenges for the team because the water table is quite high at Wappenshall and we encountered water just
2m down in the “test hole” that we dug. We will need to install some sheet piling to hold back the sub-soil whilst we pump out the water, which could get to about a metre deep otherwise. Once this has been done, we need to put in a 150mm layer of concrete and whilst this is wet, lower the tanks onto it. Then to stop the tanks “floating” whilst more concrete is poured around them, the tanks need to be gradually filled with water. Then more concrete added and so on, until the tanks are completely enveloped in concrete. Once this has been completed, the inlet and outlet pipework to the tanks will be installed. This will require more of the concrete floor of the Romney Building being taken up. The level of this floor is too high and needs to be reduced by approximately 200mm eventually, to allow the whole area to be levelled and converted into a car park.
The other major task we need to undertake is the installation of a new 3phase electricity supply. This is being planned with National Grid at present and, in preparation, we have dug out the difficult part of the trench to take the cable that passes in front of the small warehouse entrance. This too necessitated getting through about 225mm of reinforced concrete. So, it was out with the angle grinders to cut away the steel and the concrete was broken up and removed from site. We plan to fill the East Basin with water this autumn by pumping water into it from the Northern Storm Interceptor. This will require the use of our diaphragm pump and a long hose. Fortunately, this has already been started naturally. The heavy recent rains have filled the basin to over 9" deep already! [see pictures in the last Navvies] But watch out for this major goal being reached in the coming weeks.
Culmination of Shropshire Union Canal Society’s long-running project to rebuild the channel to Crickheath - in time for an April 2023 opening
Early October update: “Shropshire Union triumphant - the ‘Golden Block’ ceremony awaits” The first work party in October saw another herculean effort by volunteers of the Shropshire Union Canal Society who have been working to restore a
600 metre section of derelict canal between Pryces Bridge and Crickheath Bridge near Llanymynech since 2015.
The Heritage Lottery Funding that has enabled the work to be done expired in October, hence the absolute need to finish the task within the month.
The complicated task of removing the clay dam that had retained thousands of gallons of water in Crickheath Basin began following the installation of a temporary synthetic dam behind the existing clay structure. This was commissioned by Canal & River Trust and put in place by contractors which then enabled hundreds of tonnes of clay to be taken out. This revealed the concrete section of the basin to which waterproofing liner was then attached.
After the removal and final shaping of the last ten metres of channel the following three hours saw a frantic effort to lay down four layers of waterproofing liner and cover three quarters of it with 1,000 building blocks to weigh it down.
Stone was then applied to the top metre of a 200 metre length on the
offside of the channel, half of which was then dressed with soil and seeded to encourage the growth of vegetation. A further task was to remove 300 metres of existing newt exclusion fencing to restore the towpath side to its natural condition.
The pristine snaking path of the lined channel and restored towpath has progressively been a source of great interest and amazement to local residents and walkers alike.
The next work party would see the final 200 blocks put down including the prestigious “Golden Block” to mark the end of a remarkable chapter in the history of the restoration of the beautiful Montgomery Canal.
Late October update: “There’s gold in that thar canal...” After seven years battling to restore another 600 metres of the Montgomery Canal the volunteers of the Shropshire Union Canal Society were finally able to see all of their hard work meet a fitting conclusion, with a brief ceremony in the restored channel at Crickheath Basin.
A “ Golden Block “ was the last piece of the lining jigsaw to be fitted into place .
Interested spectators had gathered on the newly restored towpath to hear Project Manager David Carter praise his team of volunteers for their stoic efforts, dealing with adverse weather and incredibly difficult sections of subsidence, over the duration of the project.
He also thanked Canal & River Trust for its total package of support; the National Lottery for the award of £2.59m which funded operations; Arcadis, the firm of Consultants that produced the designs for the reconstruction; and Lloyds Animal Feeds, who have provided accommodation for the working compound since the start.
Following the completion of the channel on the Friday, the emphasis then moved back to the starting point at Price’s Bridge on the Saturday, when two of the stop planks which have been retaining water in the channel leading down from Frankton Locks were opened slightly, to allow water to begin to flood this new section.
This re-watering was in readiness for the introduction of a small dredger at the next Work Party in November, which was to be used to carefully remove any remnants of the clay dams that had been in place at opposite ends of the 600 metres since 2015. When this stretch of canal is official ly opened in April next year it will link the winding hole at Crickheath Basin that was restored by CRT in 2018 to the national network, enabling boats to turn round here and bringing visitors to the local community.
All of the machines used, and materials needed over the seven years have been mostly sourced from local suppliers, which has greatly benefitted sections of the local community.
Early November update: “The ‘TIGHTANIC’ Floats on the Monty” The SUCS volunteers finally saw the fruition of seven years of toil on arrival at the Friday session of the first work party in November. CRT had commissioned a dredger and barge which after some very, very, tight manoeuvres to get them on site were eventually craned into the 600 metres of restored channel on the Montgomery Canal near Crickheath which is now full of water and looks like a canal, rather than a construction site. The volunteers christened the dredger Tightanic owing to the problems encountered during delivery with the very narrow access to the launch site.
This is probably the first time for 80 years that a working boat has operated in this stretch of canal.
The vessels were hauled with ropes by the volunteers from the launch site at Crickheath Basin to Prices Bridge at the other end of channel. A small digger mounted on the dredger was used to remove the clay dam at Prices Bridge to expose all of the stop planks
that had been holding back water from the national network. The clay was then deposited into the barge which was then towed back to Crickheath by the volunteers. The clay was then removed from the barge by an onshore digger and stored for further use.
CRT acknowledges that this has been one of the most challenging situations to be tackled by a volunteer group due to subsidence, related geological issues, and ground conditions.
Advanced planning is taking place, for our next Project beyond Crickheath Bridge. The Preliminary work of constructing a site compound and fencing was completed at the end of September.
Main channel work will begin in January 2023, to link with the new Schoolhouse Bridge, which should be reinstated by the Restore the Montgomery Group by next year. We are always looking to encourage new volunteers, and also new members, to join us.
Meanwhile the Lichfield & Hatherton Canals Restoration Trust have been dealing with a ‘big pipe’, and restoring a former lock as a ‘narrows’
Work by Lichfield & Hatherton Canals Restoration Trust has been progressing on two fronts in Lichfield: at Borrowcop Locks Canal Park and at Darnford Moors. However for this update we’ll concentrate on Borrowcop Locks, alongside Tamworth Road on the edge of Lichfield.
The main focus of work has been at former lock 24, which will no longer be required in its current location. We need to get the canal under a road at a lower level than it originally crossed at, now that hump-backed bridges are no longer allowed. A new lock 24 will therefore be built on the other side of the road and the canal will be in a new deep cutting. Confused yet?
There have been several engineering challenges at old lock 24, one being the ‘Big Pipe’: a ground water drainage pipe laid along the canal bed that is in the way, but can’t be moved until it’s either diverted or the canal is in water. It’s a chicken and egg scenario.
The other challenge has been the need to support the old canal wall, which now doesn’t have sufficient foundations as the canal will be at a lower level. The solution?
The team has moved the canal slightly south and has built the ‘Big Pipe’ into the new canal wall, with additional buttresses to support the old canal wall. It has created a section called the ‘Tamworth Road Narrows’ but it’s all in a day’s work for our volunteers.
With a ‘Big Pipe’ comes inspection chambers and the team has integrated the front wall of the chamber into the new north wall. For a short while it did look like we had constructed a replica
Second World War pillbox, but a final course of bricks soon sealed up the chamber once more.
The new south wall has progressed with accompanying towpath and drystone wall as the path goes through the cutting. These have been built with an almost continuous source of imported and cleaned bricks by one of our volunteers.
The new towpath will soon join up with a diverted path we previously created, so that the public could still use the towpath trail, but out of the construction zone. Walkers will be able to choose whether to take the high road or the low road. But high or low, they will be able to see the restored historic overflow bywash, which has been underpinned, and has had a bit of extra brickwork to cover the concrete buttress.
What challenges will our valiant volunteers face next?
Christine Howles CommunicationsWendover Canal Trust’s work on lining the dry section continues, while the finishing touches are added to the new narrows and stop plank location
The Wendover Canal Trust’s two-week October work party started on 7th October. The plan was to spend the first week completing the work at the Narrows (being built just beyond the end of the currently navigable length near Tringford, to mark the limit for widebeam craft and to provide a stop-plank location for temporarily draining lengths for future maintenance) and to prepare for laying Bentomat bentonite waterproof lining. Then the second week would be spent laying Bentomat and continuing the longrunning task of lining the formerly dry section of canal from near Drayton Beauchamp back to Tringford which has currently reached a point near Bridge 4.
Bridge 4: The existing dilapidated fence was removed and new post and rail fencing completed to the towpath. The expansion joint in the base was cleaned out and polysulphide sealant installed.
Tip Clearance: The stockpile of ash from the former domestic rubbish tip site (in the infilled section of channel just beyond the limit of navigation) was disposed of off-site. Seven lorry loads of ash were taken away.
Canal Channel: Final canal bank profiling was carried out to the towpath and offside to allow 80m of Bentomat to be laid. The arising spoil was used as backfill on other parts of the site. 80m of Bentomat was then laid to each side of the channel. Concrete blockwork covering the Bentomat was started on both sides, but progress was hampered by the wet weather towards the end of the second week.
Narrows: The concrete corner coping ‘stones’ were cast, completing the Narrows walls. Backfill was placed behind the walls to bring the ground back to towpath level.
Work continued on from the Waterway Recovery Group BITM weekend and the towpath strengthening wall was completed. Once the blockwork mortar had cured backfilling both sides of the wall was undertaken.
The timber fenders were installed to the Narrows walls and the tops of the stainless steel stop plank channels were cut to profile.
Block Grab: A second-hand block grab that can be used on the 8 tonne and 13 tonne excavators was purchased. Some surface rust needs to be cleared and the steel painted. The rubber grips have been removed for cleaning and refixing.
Mikk Bradley
Not many people involved in Waterway Recovery Group today would recognise the name ‘Jim Woolgar’.
Jim was involved with WRG many years back, having been involved in its founding in 1970, and was one of the group in those days who took on various aspects of running the organisation.
He ran ‘WRG stores’ which he operated from his home, in order to raise funds for future work. Various PPE type items were advertised in Navvies. Those days PPE tended to be a donkey jacket, woolly bobble hat and wellies/work shoes. He also sold sleeping bags and many other miscellaneous items; all sent out by post.
As well as running this from his home he also took stock around to the boat festivals up and down the country, on these occasions he was often helped by his daughters.
He was also involved in the Basingstoke Canal, the writing of letters to local papers which generated the initial interest in saving it, and the Surrey & Hampshire Canal Society which was founded in 1966 to lead its restoration.
Our condolences to his family and thanks for all his work towards waterway restoration.
John HawkinsThe editor adds: Jim Woolgar retained his interest and remained a subscriber to Navvies right to the end of his life, sending the occasional contribution to the letters pages. Unfortunately his last contribution a couple of years ago at the time of our 50th anniversary, recalling his memories of the founding of WRG and first appearance of its display at the IWA National Rally of Boats at Guildford, arrived just after an issue had gone to print, and we didn’t manage to squeeze it into the following one. But I think it shows how much he was involved right at the start, so here it is...
The Conception and Birth of WRG: It all started at the 1970 IWA Guildford Rally. I was delegated to run the Surrey & Hants Canal Society ‘working party’ stand (not that we were allowed to work on the Basingstoke Canal). This was located in an adjacent field to the main site, near the toilets. At that time I was working nearby on a contract just outside Guildford.
Then the Hot line from Palmer Towers, Finchley [home of Graham (no relation) Palmer, WRG’s founder] started. “Need a scaffold tower”, “Need display boards”, “Need a large mechanical plant item”. Fortunately the foreman of the main contractor on the site I was working at was very obliging, so things arrived and were installed...
On the day, we were fully manned. Lots of helpers, we even put money collecting bins in the toilets. Claire Johnstone was ripping pictures out of a book, putting them in plastic bags, and selling them. Bob Humphrey was making Basingstoke Canal paddle boards. Plus many others.
Somebody arrived in a van with a couple of pianos... “Let’s have a piano smashing contest!” Alas this was frowned upon, so they ended up on the Council rubbish wagon; the man smashed them to get them on...
At the same time we were talking to [IWA Chairman] John Humphries about what direction we could go in. Originally the working party group concept was under the IWA London and Home Counties Working Par ty Group (The Navvies, hence the origin of Navvies Notebook as the magazine was originally called) but when the boards appeared on the stand we had a logo and
WRG name. For a few hours, overnight, it was Waterway Recovery Organisation. Thoughts were that we should be independent of IWA, but John convinced us otherwise, mainly on insurance grounds.
Jim WoolgarCanalway Cavalcade is the Inland Waterways Association’s annual festival at Little Venice (near Paddington in London) which will return for the May Day Bank Holiday in 2023 for the fortieth time. One thing that makes it happen is a team of site services volunteers – not an official WRG Camp, but generally a bunch of mostly WRGies who set up and manage the festival infrastructure and site.
The camp runs from mid-morning on Wednesday 26th April (when stuff starts arriving and we build our camp) through Thursday and Friday when we build the festival. The three days of the weekend during the actual festival generally involve site management activities before the take-down of the event on the Monday evening and Tuesday morning with the aim to have cleared the site by mid-afternoon on Tuesday 2nd May.
To make it all happen we’d like the experienced volunteers who have helped in previous years to come again and also some new faces to join the team to ensure the future of the event. We recognise that you may not be able to attend the whole camp because it does run mid-week to mid-week but we do need people to attend on the weekdays, in particular on the Monday evening and Tuesday because this is when we most need them! We welcome people who are only able to help for a day or two. There will be a plan of work activities so that everyone gets chance to enjoy some of the festival and take in the amazing atmosphere of the event.
The accommodation is limited and restricted to two narrow boats for sleeping on, plus a field kitchen (which needs to be built on day 1) for cooking and eating. Work activities include putting up (and taking down) marquees, market stalls and banners around the site, fencing, and general event management.
Outside of the work camp activities the event also needs volunteers to assist with other aspects of the event such as donation collecting, giving information to the public and children’s activities – if this is of interest please let me know.
Contact Pete Fleming on Pete.Fleming @waterways.org.uk for more information.
Roger Leishman R.I.P.We are sorry to have to bring you the sad news that Roger Leishman, former leading light of the Wendover Canal restoration has died aged 90. As Dave Chapman of WCT put it, “We owe our restoration to Roger and his leadership. If it wasn’t for Roger, the Wendover Canal as we know it might not exist and our work parties might still be restricted to pruning hawthorn”.
A former chartered railway engineer, Roger devoted his retirement to leading the Wendover restoration, persuaded the Highways Agency to modify the A41 crossing to cater for future restoration of the canal, designed the construction and lining system used right through the restoration, and negotiated to get Little Tring Bridge built.
...from the editor to everyone who has contributed words, pictures or anything else to Navvies during 2022; to Chris Griffiths for printing and John Hawkins for organising the printing, stuffing, labelling and so on; to all the Head Office staff for looking after the subscriptions side; to the team of volunteers at the envelope-stuffing sessions at the London Canal Museum, to Robert Goundry for sourcing, editing and collating content for the ‘Progress’ section, and to Lesley for proofreading.
Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year, and I’ll hopefully see some of you on a worksite somewhere in 2023.
And from John Hawkins...
Firstly many thanks to Martin at the London Canal Museum for our continuing use of the facilities at the Museum and also apologies for all the ‘hiccups’ during the past year.
My aim is still to do the Navvies stuffing at the Museum. As everybody will have noticed I have had to do some frantic moving of dates etc, all in an aptempt to maintain momentum, not really helped by tube strikes, train strikes, and also just to add to everything a postal strike!
Thank you to those folks who have managed to help with the stuffing and their patience with all the date changes etc; let’s hope for some smoother times next year... a bit hopeful I fear!!
Have a good Christmas and New Year. John Hawkins
Reopening to boats: April 2023
Reopening to boats: April 2023
