paddles to go...

Still on the subject of canal boat journeys made on the navigable network but in connection with restoration work on disused routes, is this tale of how some surplus paddle gear salvaged from the Montgomery Canal ended up on a completely different part of the former Shropshire Union network, 20 years later and having travelled via the East Midlands. Dave Turner takes up the story...

Following WRG’s restoration of Aston Locks (reopened 2003) there were about four tonnes of surplus and unwanted items left over on the Montgomery Canal; including unused bricks, shelf racking, various timbers and 3 cast ground paddle starts (the metal or wooden pillar, also known as a jack head or a paddle stand, that supports the paddle gear) with pinions still fitted, two racks and several other pieces of ironwork associated with a canal lock.

The ground paddles were of an old Shroppie pattern, still sound, but unwanted and about to be scrapped. Unsurprisingly, all these items were declared by the late John ‘The Collector/Hoarder’ Baylis as being too useful to be discarded.

So we loaded them aboard our working boat Bath and my wife Izzie and I brought them back to Langley Mill at the top of the Erewash Canal where we moor and where Erewash Canal Preservation & Development Association (ECPDA) has a base.

Fast forward to 2022 and having become Work Party Organiser for ECP&DA I set about clearing out one of our four compounds and came across all this ironwork. Since it had been unwanted by British Waterways presumably the Canal & River Trust was not going to love it and obviously it could not be scrapped after all this timeso what to do with it? The best hope seemed to be another part of the SUC system, so I emailed the Shrewsbury & Newport Canals Trust and received word back from their Work Party Organiser John Myers that my offer was somewhat timely as he was organising a project to completely restore one of their locks.

For the first time in many years we attended the IWA Festival of Water at Burton-on-Trent since it was conveniently on the way back from the Historic Narrow Boat Club gathering in London. It would have been nice to pass the paddle gear to someone from the S&NCT there but unfortunately they were not attending. Moreover, the cargo was still at Langley Mill and the next destination for Bath would be Norbury for a cabin repaint in the autumn but via the Shardlow Historic Port Festival. Then we realised that

Pentland, the ECP&DA work boat at Langley Mill was also bound for the Festival so the paddle gear could be loaded into it then transferred into Bath at Shardlow.

My guess is that each of the paddle starts weighs about three hundredweight (150kg) so lifting them into Pentland at ‘the Mill’ we used the WRG Case shovel loader. At Shardlow there was no such mechanical aid so it was back to manpower, carefully sliding each piece in turn up a plank, securely anchored with ropes, onto the back end of one boat, across to the other and then down a third plank into our boat’s hold. This operation took several hours and involved nearly half our (not so young!) work party on a very hot Friday afternoon. Job done we headed for the pub.

Luckily John M was able to arrange for the nice people at Norbury Wharf to use their big shovel loader to lift all the heavy pieces out again – which took no time at all!

I do hope the paddle gear will be of some use to S&NCT if only as a demonstration of a completed lock to the local populace and councillors.

Dave Turner