Having narrowly failed to monopolise the working party reports section of Navvies, the W&B sneaks into the progress pages too...
Progress
Wilts & Berks Canal
flow fast. A breach in the bed of the canal was repaired in 2006. This promises to be an This year we have tackled some ambitious ambitious and engrossing project for 2009. projects and made great progress thanks to River Ray Valley, Moredon, Swinthe skills and efforts of WBCT members don: Breathing Places - Towpath and combined with skills and effort from WRG on Canal bed restoration. Wilts and Berks some of the projects. Through 2009 there Canal Trust won £10,000 of funding from will be plenty of opportunities for interesting the Breathing Places project which was set and challenging work. We are looking for up by the BBC and the Big Lottery Fund to bricklayers as well as drivers for dumpers encourage more people to get involved in and excavators, and people to do general out door activities. The towpath was comoutdoor work like path clearance. If you d pletely unrecognisable beneath decades of like to join our working parties and share in bramble growth and the team had to do our achievements, please get in touch using some tough clearance work to uncover it. To the contact details at the end of the piece. get the best out of the funding most of the Pewsham Locks and canal pound work is being done by volunteers and the to Naish Hill: Plans are in place to re-water funding has been used on wildlife surveys, the canal between Pewsham Locks and Naish specialist tools and support for the volunHill, so local branch members have been teers. The project s aim is to restore the working hard in 2008. The enthusiastic team towpath and assess the state of the canal bed has worked to restore spill-weirs, Double and infill on a derelict section of the canal at Bridge and repair culverts that run under the Moredon. Work continued with a working canal. When this work is completed there will party over the Christmas break and the still be plenty to do to repair the flight of 3 project is set to complete by July 2009. Now locks at Pewsham, as well as the saw pit and the path is cleared, a leaflet on local walks dry dock. will be published covering the Moredon This is a project that it is hoped will be section and a nearby walking route at funded through a Heritage Lottery Award Mouldon Hill. which will be undertaken by contractors in Latton Basin Heritage Project: 2010 but with all the preliminary works Preservation of Latton Basin and Lock carried out by volunteers in 2009. One major The Latton Basin Team are investigating and task is the excavation of all three lock cham- preserving this important heritage site in bers. One has been partially cleared but the conjunction with the Cotswold Canals Trust. other two have over 100 years of accumuThis year the team has cleared silt from the lated solidified silt in them. The clearance basin as well as clearing the canal bed and work is essential to establish the extent of doing further work to expose the lock. The the restoration required so that a detailed restoration is uncovering some fascinating contact document can be prepared. It will industrial archaeology and will remain a require drivers for diggers and dumpers as lasting source of information and inspiration well as labourers to do the final clearance by for future generations. The late Alfred and hand. Ann Howse were the last keepers at the Another job for 2009 is the repair of Basin and their family has been very generCocklemore Brook Culvert. This is approxious in working with the team to pass on a mately 1.5M wide at the base and runs a vast amount of detailed information that has total of 36M under the canal below Bottom helped deepen our understanding of their Lock. Both entrance and exit portals have to work. The basin will not be used as part of be rebuilt which requires the diversion of the the restored Wilts Berks Canal, instead, the brook which at time has a significant water plans are in place to create a new junction
Wilts and Berks Canal
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