River Wey & Godalming Navigations Page National Trust

River Wey & Godalming Navigations

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Come and Savour Steam on the River! “Puffing a-Wey!” Saturday 9th July 2022 11.00am - 5.00pm

Members of The Steamboat Association of Great Britain are delighted to return to the National Trust’s Dapdune Wharf for a Midsummer Weekend of steam boats after a break of two years.

Although the main day is Saturday 9th July, Steam powered launches and boats are expected to be at and around the wharf in central Guildford all weekend providing a colourful spectacle on the River Wey Navigation. Visiting from across Britain as guests of the Trust, the steam boats are owned by members of the Steamboat Association of Great Britain.

The National Trust’s Dapdune Wharf is an extraordinary, almost hidden, rustic gem in the middle of busy Guildford. The wharf is the historic central depot for the Wey and Godalming Navigations and its sheds and exhibitions transport visitors back to pre-railway days when barge traffic on the waterway was the area’s most important connection to London’s commerce and docks. “Puffing a-Wey!” has been held in Guildford since 2012 and can attract 15-20 boats, each of them unique. Some are historic, others have been built from scratch by their owners along traditional lines but all provide fascinating sights, sounds and fragrances evocative of the steam age on Britain’s inland waterways.

All enquiries to Mark Rudall

markrudall@gmail.com or tel: 01252 645486, mob: 07779 654975

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Renewing the Lock Gates on the River Wey

When the lock gates were built along the River Wey over 300 years ago, there was no standard template. Each gate was custom made using local oak to fit the waterway. As a busy trade route to London, the locks were in constant use from the horse-drawn wooden barges, and inevitably the lock gates became worn and damaged and would need to be replaced. This would be undertaken by craftsmen using local oak, and a team of maintenance workers, often from the same family, would re-instate them. Although today the traffic along the Wey today is very different, the locks are still very busy and the wooden lock gates suffer from exposure to the elements and boat damage. Replacing old and damaged locks on the River Wey and Godalming Navigations is part of the annual maintenance programme. This has to be undertaken in the winter so as to cause minimum disruption during the least busy period on the waterway.

Using many of the traditional methods and tools employed by their forefathers, the gates are crafted from sustainable oak. The cast iron fittings are taken off the old gates and reused on the new ones. The maintenance team then spend up to two weeks installing them, in much the same way as has been done for over three hundred years.

Tales of a Lengthsman -Emma writes a monthly blog for Dapdune Wharf and we are grateful to have been given permission to relay some of her work in Cargoes.

April – Interesting Feathery Faces.

Like so many other workplaces at the moment we have our fair share of sickness among the workforce so I have been covering Thames Lock for a couple of days. It’s the only staffed lock we have and it is where the Navigation joins the River Thames at Weybridge. After the luxury of mostly staffed and automated locks on the Thames it means we can break visitors in gently to our historic and very manual locks here on the Wey.