Site No 1:
The Ashby Canal
What’s the job for this year’s Ashby Canal Camps? Two words: ‘bricks’ and ‘bridges’. There are two sites for this year’s Ashby Canal camps. The first is just north of Snarestone, where we’ll be reinstating the missing Bridge 62, the first bridge on the northern reaches of the canal. That’s the project we were meant to be doing on the October 2014 camp, but we couldn’t because the contractors who were supposed to have put in the foundations first hadn’t managed to get their act together in time. And the second site is a couple of miles south at Jackson’s Bridge (41) on the navigable length of the canal. If you worked on the North Oxford Canal bridges project at Barby a couple of years ago you’ll have some idea of what’s involved: basically repointing / repairing / replacing damaged brickwork on a historic brick arch bridge on a canal that’s actually open.
What skills are needed? Bricklaying is the main one. There will be opportunities for new volunteers to learn to lay bricks, and plenty of other work available, but we do need several experienced brickies if we’re going to really make a success of this job.
When are the Canal Camps? Camp 2015-17: 8 to 15 August. Camp 2015-20: 15 to 22 August.
Why’s it important?
Martin Ludgate
In the case of Bridge 62, it’s the first proper obstruction that you get to when you head north from the existing limit of navigation where the canal fizzles out among the fields just north of Snarestone. After many years of trying to get work started on the next length of canal, in the last couple of years the Ashby Canal Trust and partnership have finally got the funding and permissions sorted out and has been busy extending the channel northwards a few yards at a time. We can help them by putting in the first new bridge on this length. It’s a significant step towards their mediumterm goal of opening the canal to Measham, and there will actually be boats going under our rebuilt bridge within a year or two. And in the case of Bridge 41, it follows on from our work at Barby, and at Lady Capel’s Bridge on the Grand Union in 2012. It all ties in with the ‘Building Bridges’ initiative between WRG and the Canal & River Trust. This is about (a) helping to restore and maintain historic bridges over navigable waterways, but ones New length at Snarestone looking towards Bridge 61 site which don’t get a high
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