progress Wendover Canal

Wendover Canal Trust brave the muddy conditions to carry on channel rebuilding, plant trees and hedge plants, and fix a leaky sluice gate

Wendover Canal

Wendover Canal Trust December 2022

Work Party

Bridge 4: The area around Bridge 4 was tidied up and surplus materials moved back to the compound.

Whitehouses Sluice Gate: A new gasket was cut and fitted to the backing plate to the sluice gate. The gate was refitted and the operation checked. A water test could not be carried out because of the lack of water in the canal.

Canal Channel reconstruction: The day before the work party, water lying in the canal channel was pumped out to allow work to progress, however the spoil that had been stockpiled on the canal bed in November was too wet to support the weight of the excavator, so it was not possible to backfill these sections of the bank as had been planned. Some spoil was placed on the banks where the bed mat had not been rolled out. Rough profiling of both banks was carried out along the canal channel from the last lined section towards our car park (close to where the length under restoration meets the limit of the navigable section at the new ‘narrows’ which last year’s WRG Canal Camps worked on. The spoil was used to backfill sections of the former rubbish tip where buried ash used to fill in the canal a century ago has been removed and the towpath bank needed widening.

Tidy Friday was spent planting tree and hedge whips at the winding hole at the limit of navigation and along the offside fence at the narrows. Some reeds at the winding hole were cut by hand.

The main activity during the BITM weekend was to install the fence between Little Tring

Farm and the canal. 16 volunteers were on site and completed the fence installation. In addition to the fence some of their volunteers continued with the rough profiling of the canal channel. WCT’s thanks go to the BITM group.

Wendover Canal Trust January 2023 Work Party

Bridge 4: A gate was fitted into the fence at Bridge 4.

Canal Channel: The day before the work party, water lying in the canal channel was pumped out to allow work to progress. The canal bed still had some standing water which mixed with the spoil to create a slurry making working conditions very muddy.

Approximately 35m of bed mat was rolled out along the base of the canal, concrete ‘sleeping policemen’ (struts across the canal to provide support) laid, and banks backfilled where we could reach. Surplus spoil was placed in the canal bed ready to complete the backfilling of the banks later in the year.

Odd Jobs: The green fencing along the towpath was tidied up and extended towards the car park. The WCT survey team established level control points through the car park to the Narrows. These will allow the canal profile to be set out accurately. In addition some control points were set up through the former tip area.

Mikk Bradley