Progress all around the system

Progress Lapal Canal

Getting boats onto the first length of the Lapal Canal moves a step closer with construction of a winding hole to help craft to access the canal

Lapal Canal

WRG will be returning to the Lapal Canal (the abandoned Selly Oak to Halesowen length of the Dudley No 2 Canal, part of the Birmingham Canal Navigations) this summer for a canal camp, working on the towpath and a connecting path in Selly Oak Park. But the main project under way at the moment as part of the Lapal Canal scheme isn’t physically on the Lapal Canal at all...

The first section of canal from the junction with the Worcester & Birmingham Canal has been partly reinstated as part of a retail development, and will link up with the section in the park where WRG will be working. But access for boats from the W&B will be tricky because of the awkward turn resulting from the constricted site. In fact all except the shortest boats won’t be able to turn from the Worcester direction onto the Lapal Canal at all. The junction is right up against a road bridge and can’t be widened to make room to turn.

So the solution is to create a new winding hole (turning basin) on the far A plastic dam keeps the canal out of the worksite

side of the canal, just beyond the junction, so boats coming from Worcester will use it to turn around and then approach the junction from the rather easier Birmingham direction. It forms part of a wider local amenity scheme called Whitehouse Wharf, which also includes a new canalside public square and a footbridge providing access from the town centre to the retail development, while the winding hole will enable it to be a destination for trip-boats from central Birmingham.

The pictures on these pages show the state of progress on creating the winding hole.

Above: the piling that will form the wall of the winding hole. Below: “Mud, glorious mud...”

Progress Lichfield

LHCRT have funding for a new section of canal at Falkland Road, while carrying on with work at Tamworth Road and refurbishing a liftbridge

Lichfield Canal

Lichfield & Hatherton Canals Restoration Trust has been awarded £260,000 from Lichfield District Council’s Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) which will be used to continue the work already carried out along Falkland Road (part of Lichfield’s bypass road, where a diversionary route for the restored canal is being created alongside the road, to replace a length lost under building development). This will allow Lichfield and Hatherton Canals Restoration Trust to build an 870 metre extension of the public footpath and partial dry canal channel alongside Falkland Road, creating a traffic-free community greenway link between Birmingham Road and the very popular Heritage Towpath Trail at Fosseway Heath.

The path will be available to pedestrians and cyclists and of particular benefit to residents of the new Taylor Wimpey Friary Meadow and Bower Park developments, providing a green corridor supporting the sustainable development of Lichfield District. Zone A of the Falkland Road channel and towpath project was completed during 2020, following the donation of land by Staffordshire County Council (SCC), a Community Fund grant of £2,800 and LHCRT’s successful public Piling Appeal. The CIL funding, which comes from developer contributions, is subject to gaining planning permission for current and future works and transfer of land ownership from SCC. Final approval will allow the extension of the path and channel through Zones B and C up to Birmingham Road.

Meanwhile, work parties have continued to concentrate their efforts at Tamworth Road on building new walls at the site of old lock 24, which has been demolished to allow the channel to be lowered before it enters a new culvert under Cricket Lane (with a replacement lock to be built on the far side of the road. New buttresses holding up the old wall next to Lichfield Canal

Length: 7 miles Locks: 30 Date closed: 1955

Diversions to be built to avoid obstructions to restoration To Fradley Coventry Canal

Fosseway Heath and Lock 18

Aqueduct To Anglesey Basin M6Toll

Ogley Junction

Wyrley & Essington Canal to Wolverhampton A461 A5127

Railway LICHFIELDBypass

A38

A51 HS2? Huddlesford To Coventry

Cappers Lane Darnford Moors liftbridge Tamworth Road work site

A5

Next part of bypass to be built New channel being built alongside Falkland Road section of bypass Cricket Old Lock 24 to be

Lane replaced by new lock on west side

Gallows Reach of Cricket Lane

work site

The Lichfield Canal is the name given by canal restorers to the abandoned eastern seven miles of the Wyrley & Essington Canal. The canal originally stretched from the Birmingham Canal Navigations Main Line in Wolverhampton to a junction with the Coventry Canal at Huddlesford, but this eastern length which included all 30 of the canal’s locks was closed in the 1950s to save the cost of maintaining the locks.

Pictures by LHCRT Darnford Moors litbridge before and after its facelift

Falkland Road, view from the completed Zone ‘A’ length towards Zones ‘B’ and ‘C’, where work will be funded by the CIL grant

the lock cottage are not now visible and the new wall on the cottage side is ready for backfilling with concrete, while work on the building of the towpath wall is also progressing well.

Also at Tamworth Road, the LHCRT ‘green team’ and Duke of Edinburgh award volunteers have planted new hedging and sown wildflower seeds along a newly created bund. Bat boxes have been installed at Tamworth Road following a survey carried out from April to October, 2021, by 14-year-old Owen Smith, son of Garry Smith, senior ecologist for specialist consultants Chase Ecology, which discovered seven species of bats feeding in the area.

The lift bridge installed over 20 years ago at Darnford Moors has been given a complete facelift, thanks to Thomson Protective Coatings Ltd, who provided the work and materials for free. The bridge originally came from the Peak Forest Canal via the Chesterfield Canal. Its refurbishment and construction of the abutments was largely carried out by volunteers in 1997/1998 with funding from Staffordshire Environment Fund. It allows the towpath to cross over from the south side of the canal channel to the north side, avoiding the abandoned lock 29 and conservation area.

David Hodgkinson

Progress Montgomery

With reopening planned for 2023, SUCS are on the last lap of their channel lining marathon at Crickheath - and there’s progress elsewhere too...

Montgomery Canal

The main restoration action at the moment is concentrated on the 1500 metre length between Pryces Bridge and Schoolhouse Bridge, on the English length of canal beyond the current limit of navigation at Gronwen Bridge, near Maesbury. There are three separate projects on the go, each at a different stage in the restoration process. Also a fourth project will be starting shortly on the Welsh section of the canal.

Shropshire Union Canal Society’s volunteers continue rebuilding work on the channel between Pryces Bridge and Crickheath. The majority of the banks in the areas affected by subsidence are now complete and final channel shaping in these areas has started. Lining work was due to start in early May. Work is hampered by the historic twin problems of bad ground and high water table but at the time of writing, of the 320m length in question 60m has already been lined and 100m is profiled to the final shape ready for lining. The plan is that this section will be in a state to be re-watered in the autumn. The two images [on this page and on the front cover of the magazine] give some idea of the scale of the works.

The work on this section was recognised in late November when the Society, together with Arcadis (consulting engineers) and the Canal & River Trust (the client), won the Community Engagement Award at the 2021 Ground Engineering Awards Ceremony held in London. The winner came from a short list which included a section of the HS2 project and three other professionally deliv-

ered entries. The Ground Engineering Awards Ceremony recognises achievements across geotechnical engineering, and attracts the biggest names in main contracting, engineering consulting, geotechnics and ground Investigation suppliers and manufacturers.

Meanwhile preparation work has started on the Crickheath to Schoolhouse Bridge section of channel. To date a newt licence has been issued, a ground investigation undertaken, the channel design established and costing produced. This is likely to be another SUCS volunteer-led project.

Further south still, the legal work connected with the rebuilding of Schoolhouse Bridge is now finished and the design agreed with the highways authority. A recent increase in the prices of building materials has set back the start of the project and a new appeal for funding has been launched.

The final bit of excellent news was the announcement of allocation of ‘Levelling-up’ funds for restoration by contractors of most of the Llanymynech to Ardleen length [See our restoration feature in Navvies issue 310]. This work will enable the rebuilding of two bridges, construction of off-line nature reserves, and extensive channel works. Work is likely to start on site next year. Additional funding is being used by CRT to study future main road crossings south of Ardleen. David Carter

SUCS Update 1: early May

Shropshire Union Canal Volunteers continued their fortnightly programme at the beginning of May near Crickheath. The first task was to pump out volumes of water to enable the waterproof lining and blocking to begin. The lining process was made very difficult by very strong gusts of wind which got under the plastic lining sheets causing huge air bubbles to form. In spite of this handicap 12 metres were prepared for blocking during Friday afternoon. Saturday was a very calm day and a further 18 metres of lining was quickly put down and laying blocks began in earnest. By lunchtime on Sunday 30 metres of channel had been lined and blocked, using 3,000 building blocks.

SUCS Update 2: late May

Another 40 metres of waterproof lining was put down and covered with building blocks. 140 metres have now been completed leaving a further 190 metres to finish by Christmas, in order that this stretch of canal can be filled with water and retention tested for a grand opening in 2023. It is anticipated that by the end of August all lining will be finished, enabling all energy to be directed to towpath work and other remedial tasks. On the Sunday a stretch of embankment was covered in Riprap. We covered an area of canal bank above the water-line with soil and boulders [pictured] to reduce erosion from boats and also promote grass and vegetation growth.

Progress H & G

The Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal Trust is preparing to welcome WRG for three weeks of canal and culvert construction on the summer camps

Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal

Some time ago we gave you an oversight on the work being done across the Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal. We updated you on the land acquisitions at Malswick, near Newent - which included building some bridges, literally, for the farmer enabling us to access the land for further development of the canal. After this work was completed, we applied for (in the process providing over 100 plus documents) and received planning permission to restore over 600 metres of canal (actually it will be a brand new channel on a slightly different alignment to the origin al) in November 2021.

This year the team at Malswick have continued work on the project. There is now a new entrance accessing the site. Work has been completed on building the ‘small’ culvert under what will be the new canal (see picture). Other groundworks have been started ready to put in place the ‘large’ culvert. After contacting WRG to show what we have done and what we have to do it has been agreed that 3 weeks of WRG camps will occur in July 2022. Hopefully we will see a lot of workers. [...and hopefully some camp reports in the next issues of Navvies ...Ed]

In the meantime, engineering solutions are being worked on for other parts of the canal. A little way up the road from Malswick, at Newent we are investigating the concept of an Inclined plane for getting boats up and over the road there. We already have an excellent model, (picture below) created by a volunteer. The model was first shown at last year’s IWA event at

Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal

The Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal was begun during the Canal Mania, when the success of some of the early canals led to a rush of speculative construction of waterways, some of which (like the H&G) turned out not to be very profitable at all. To make matters worse, a diversion via Newent to serve a small new coalfield added an expensive tunnel to the route, the coal turned out to be no good, and the canal ran out of money at Ledbury. However a young man named Stephen Ballard joined the canal company and convinced them that if they could get to Hereford it would be a success. It got there in the end, but it wasn’t a success. The company made the best of a bad job by selling out to a railway company who closed the canal and used parts of it for their line. The railway in turn closed in 1959. Length: 34 miles Locks: 23 Date closed: 1881

Site for 2022 Canal Camps

Worcester and proved to be a great way to engage interest in the canal and was also mentioned in Canal Boat magazine.

In Herefordshire we have gained some landowners permission to work further along the canal. While this gives us permissino to work the canal and the canal towpath unfortunately no public access is permissable at present, although we have had a couple of walks occuring where we have gained permission to show members these sites as part of a guided walk. One walk already completed gave us a view of the Ashperton Tunnel entrance. This is accessed via a private garden. In the previous few months volunteers have been working on gaining access to the tunnel and clearing undergrowth. We have another guided walk occuring in June as part of the Herefordshire Walking Festival.

At both ends of the canal we had the reed boats in again. This picture shows them getting ready with the cutter at Over. They then went up to Aylestone Park in Hereford the following day.

The Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal Trust continues to focus on rebuilding a sustainable canal from Hereford to Gloucester, with the emphasis on ensuring there is a built-in income to keep the canal maintained once it is restored.

Small culvert. The summer camps will help build the big one Inclined plan display model and (below) reed cutter at Over

Progress Wendover

Wendover Canal Trust get to work on building the new narrows at Little Tring, get rid of lorry-loads of infill, and go looking for persistent leaks

Grand Union Wendover Arm

Background: the Wendover Canal Trust is working to restore the six-mile arm of the Grand Union Canal. This begins with almost two miles of navigable canal from the GU Main Line at Bulbourne to a new winding hole (turning point) and temporary terminus created at Little Tring as part of Phase 1 of the restoration, completed in 2005. Just beyond there is a short filled-in section whose re-excavation has unfortunately been complicated by the discovery that the 100 year old rubbish and ash that it was filled in with is classed as contaminated (it contains some lead, which was used for lots of things back then) and needs special disposal (although it can be moved around the site). This is the area where a ‘narrows’ is being constructed, limiting the width of the canal (which up to here has been capable of taking 14ft wide craft - albeit they would have a

Pictures by WCT

A hole is excavated at the site for the new narrows... ...and an initial blinding layer of concrete is laid

tight squeeze passing each other) to narrowboats of around 7ft beam.

Beyond here is the start of almost two miles of what was dry channel to Aston Clinton (the remaining length from Aston Clinton to Wendover is in water, used as a feeder, and just needs three low-level unnavigable bridges dealing with), but which WCT’s volunteers have been rebuilding (including lining in concrete and bentonite matting) ever since 2005, including building new footbridges (Bridges 4 and 4a) and creating mooring bays, and rewatering in lengths. They’ve been working back from the far end at Aston Clinton and they’re getting fairly close to completing the job by linking up with the infilled length where the narrows is being built at Little

The crack at Whitehouses pumping station: source of the leak? Tring, but unfortunately the most recently rebuilt section has turned out to be suffering from a hard-to-track-down leakage problem. April working party: The weather was variable, with conditions being good enough

Wendover Arm

Length: 6 miles Locks: 0 (1 stop-lock added) Date closed: 1904

Grand Union Main Line to Birmingham

The Wendover Arm has the dubious distinction of having been built as a navigable feeder to provide a water supply to the Grand Junction (now the Grand Union) Canal, but ending up leaking so much that it was actually costing the canal water. Attempts to waterproof it (including lining a section of it with bitumen) proved unsuccessful. In 1904 the canal company gave up, closed it to navigation and drained the length from Little Tring to Aston Clinton (with the Arm’s water supply function maintained by carrying the water in a pipe laid in a trench dug in the former canal bed). From Aston Clinton to Wendover the remaining length of the canal was maintained as an unnavigable water supply channel, with the water kept at a reduced level.

Marsworth Aylesbury Arm Infilled section

Tringfordand new narrows under construction To London

Wendover

Aston Clinton A41 Little Tring

Halton Phase 3 Aston Clinton to Wendover: in water at reduced level, three new bridges needed

Bulbourne

Junction Bulbourne to Little Tring: always navigablePhase 2 Little Tring to Aston Clinton:

Phase 1 at Littleunder restoration /

Tring:channel rebuilding

reopened 2005 Bridge 4 and area of leakage problems Whitehouses former pumping station site

on Sunday 3rd April for 26 dumper loads of ash to be removed from the edges of the hole where the narrows will be, and stored near the road access. But next day it was so wet that attempts to excavate the narrows had to be abandoned. (And Thursday 7th was very windy).

By the end of Tuesday 5th we completed excavating the required profile to build the narrow section of canal next to the Little Tring winding hole. On Wednesday, 7 cubic metres of ready-mix concrete was spread across the floor of the excavation as a “blinding” layer. The pictures show the the hole excavated and volunteers laying the concrete.

Bottle collecters continue to disturb our excavation, so to deter them and increase site safety, we have erected a Heras steel fence at the top of the ramp down into the hole.

Unexplained water loss Bridge 4a to 4: Our ongoing work has not yet explained the water loss in this section, although there is now some as-yet-incomplete evidence that at least some of the loss is at the former pumping station site at Whitehouses. Our bunds (which divide this into shorter lengths, as part of the investigation) needed further work because water was running round the ends, so we had to remove some concrete blocks from the side of the canal above each end and replace them with actual concrete. At the end of the work party, there were still some unexplained trickles of water, and work continues.

We found some minor pointing needed at Whitehouses, perhaps from the work done in 2008, and that was done on Tuesday. While tidying the site for this, we were surprised to find a large and long crack along the back of the low-level original brick apron in front of Whitehouses pumping station, across the lower front of the arches. It is not yet clear when the crack started, but it seems to have become larger. Initial thoughts were that while this may not explain our current water loss issue, it would certainly leak in future when the water reaches full height. Mikk Bradley is consulting CRT on the required repair.

May working party: At the narrows, blockwork was laid as a permanent shutter to the required shape, which is something like an hourglass when seen from above. It took a lot more effort than expected to tie together steel reinforcement, which unfortunately had to be completed in the rain. Five loads of ready-mix concrete were delivered and placed, poured, spread, compacted and tamped the following day. .

The resulting concrete foundation looks too wide to be a narrows, but by the time blockwork walls have been laid round the edges of the concrete, and then faced with brick, the narrows will be little wider than a 7

foot wide narrowboat.

Spoil Relocation: In preparation for this summer’s major ash removal exercise, our mountain of clay contaminated with coal tar (from a 19th century attempt to waterproof the canal) has been moved. Until now it was on top of the ash, between the car park and the winding hole/narrows. Now it has been temporarily placed just the other side of the car park and entrance, at the beginning of the section towards Bridge 4. It has temporarily filled in a short section of canal to towpath level. It is expected that this spoil will be gradually used up when we recommence lining the canal. For now, we have an additional storage area for materials.

We experimented with a remote-controlled hired roller to compact this spoil so that it can be driven over. However we were disappointed; it achieved little that we couldn’t have achieved as well or better by driving the large excavator back and forth over it.

Ash removal: Almost all the ash we stockpiled last month has gone to FCC’s tip at Calvert. This took 13 lorry-loads across four days. We look forward to a major operation in July and August, which we expect will clear most or all of the ash, except that which lies under our volunteers’ car park and the entrance area where we store material for removal. These sections will be the last to be relined, and so will not be cleared of ash until we have completed all other relining. clear whether this has anything to do with the water loss to date, it will certainly cause water loss in future unless we repair it. It was worse than we expected; having chipped out some old brickwork, the cracks led to voids which appear to have been dug by rabbits under the Whitehouses walls. Suitable repairs are being discussed with the Canal & River Trust.

Tidy Friday: Seven volunteers spent the time at the rear of the winding hole clearing the vegetation from around all the new trees that we have planted over the last two years. We have found that this last lot of trees have a much better survival rate than the previous year’s, around 95% compared with only 75% of the earlier ones. We think this is because until this last year they all came bare root, but now they come as plug plants.

Visit of Kescrg and London WRG: Members of two of the travelling groups jointly visited us over the weekend at the end of our work party. They finished the spoil relocation, extended the towpath fence next to where the spoil now is, further excavated the crack at Whitehouses, and did some final brickwork repairs at Bridge 4. Thank you!

Clive Johnson Restoration volunteer and Chairman Wendover Canal Trust

Unexplained water loss Bridge 4a to 4: This month’s work has concentrated on chipping out the brickwork crack we found last month at Whitehouses. While it is by no means ...ready for five loads of ready-mix concrete

Progress Wey & Arun

Remember the liftbridge base that was largely built during three weeks of Canal Camps in 2019? Good, because it’s time to build another one...

Wey & Arun Canal

The Wey & Arun Canal Trust’s latest project is to build the second of two new liftbridges at Birtley, south of Bramley near the northern end of the canal.

This is the site where in 2019 three weeks of intensive work on consecutive canal camps carried out the bulk of the structural work to build the first bridge. This has since had a temporary fixed deck installed, but now needs a lifting mechanism adding - it will be a traditional counterweight balanced bridge operated by a manually wound mechanical system, which is set to become a distinctive feature of this part of the canal.

Meanwhile the site of the second bridge is currently a causeway blocking the canal, carrying a public bridleway and incorporating a gas main. To allow the excavation of a trench below the canal bed for relocation of the gas pipe and also the creation of a temporary bridleway diversion, the canal needed to be dammed off and drained.

WACT has installed a SpeedyDam waterfilled dam from AquaDam Europe (consisting of a geotextile membrane with polyethylene liner), creating a 1.2m high barrier in a matter of hours. It’s the first time the Trust has used one of these; it’s easily transportable and will be useful on future projects elsewhere on the canal. First bridge awaits its lifting gear and (below) dam and second bridge site Pictures by WACT