Camp Report
At last: the WRG BITM Summer 2003 Canal Camp report... WRG BITM on the Wilts & Berks Canal 26th July to 2nd August 2003 Friday night: Jasmine and I arrived at Dauntsey, where we met up with Ian Rutledge and Rachael Banyard at Rachael’s house. Di Smurthwaite was already asleep, the time having gone 11.00pm. The evening conversation drifted towards a discussion on aircraft history and various airfields - this prompted by our proximity to RAF Lyneham, home of a large fleet of Hercules transport planes.
An hour later on site they were joined by Rob Brotherston, Ian Smart, Deb Turnbull and Luke Walker. At lunchtime, Jasmine and I delivered the sandwiches to site and found them hard at work in the barn, breaking and laying out concrete from the old garage base, which was covering the site where a wharf wall was to be built. David James arrived shortly afterwards. During the afternoon, the team pumped out the water from in front of the wharf wall. Ian Rutledge, Ian Smart and Dave went up to the far end of site near to Seven Locks to move logs to where they could be picked up by tractor and trailer. Whilst there, they coppiced the Ash stumps. Behind the Peterborough Arms, the rest of the team cleaned up and burned the rubbish which had collected around the lock. Half way up the canal, beyond the spillweir, Di pollarded the stumps of willow: basically removing the new growth so that later the stumps can be removed. In the evening after the meal, Phill took us to the Peterborough arms where we drank beer and played skittles.
Graham Hotham
Saturday morning we rose bright and early, ready to move into our home for the week – Foxham Reading Rooms. Phill Cardy and Dave Rudland arrived with Dave’s minibus; they also brought along half a tonne of scrap copper to offload - the money raised from recycling the copper goes back into restoring the canal.
Unloading done, we travelled to Foxham where Jeremy Yearron and Luke Walker arrived shortly afterwards.
The new concrete spillweir culvert pipe in place, with the remains of the old brick culvert visible around it
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