Progress
This has involved building (and subsequently dismantling) shuttering and reinforcing for 75 base and 75 upright sections of wall and pouring 586 cubic metres of concrete (150 lorry-loads), at a cost of around £100 per metre of completed wall. The final section of shuttering was removed before an appreciative audience of WAT members and friends by a team of work party ‘regulars’ (‘the real VIPs of this occasion’). Before opening a celebratory bottle of champagne, Restoration Director Roger Leishman paid tribute to the volunteers for all their hard work; to the ‘restoration widows’ for tolerating their frequent and often prolonged absences from home and for running the Tea Boat during the Festival which alone had contributed £4,000 to the cause; to the members of the Festival Committee without whose terrific efforts there would not have been the funds to go ahead with the work (the 2003 Festival raised a record £37,000); to the IWA whose granting of the Tim Wilkinson Bequest to WAT had secured the funding needed to complete Phase 1; and to the various regional restoration groups who had contributed to the work over the years.
A milestone (or rather 650m of concrete) on the Wendover Celebrations on the Wendover Arm On Sunday 16th November members of the Wendover Arm Trust celebrated the completion of the final section of reinforced concrete wall to be built during Phase 1 of the restoration scheme.
Stella Wentworth
Since May 1998, WAT volunteers have built 650 metres of wall from Tring Stop Lock to the site of the new winding hole.
Meanwhile, work on the section designated for Phase 2 continues, with a furlong of scrub clearance and stumping to go before the line is clear from Little Tring to the new & recently-rewatered section at Drayton Beauchamp and Aston Clinton. Stella Wentworth
Stella Wentworth
Above: Wendover Arm Trust volunteers posing proudly by their 75th and final length of concrete wall. Below: The completed wall, with the rebuilt LittleTring Bridge in the background. Hopefully this length will be reopened in May 2005.
The section between the stop lock and Little Tring Bridge has been funded by the IWA branches of the Grand Junction region, who raised over £30,000. Already 45 metres has been lined with Bentonite matting and capped with concrete. All being well, lining the rest of Phase 1 will be completed in 2004, with the new section ready for an official opening in May 2005.
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