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KESCRG and London WRG
Inglesham and Eisey November 2011
November saw KESCRG join London
WRG for a very well attended weekend working at the eastern end of
the Cotswold Canals, staying at Kempsford village hall.
On Saturday one group spent the day preparing the foundations for
the retaining walls of the by-wash lagoon at Eisey lock.
Photo Tim Lewis
Photo Alan Lines
The lock itself is now complete bar gates and paddles.
In just
over three years of intensive work from summer camps and many
weekends from KESCRG, the other visiting restoration groups and the
Cotswold Canals Trust volunteers have turned the derelict lock as seen
in this picture taken during the initial site visit by Eddie in
January2008
photo Eddie Jones
Via this:
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Photo Alan Lines
To This:
Photo Alan Lines
Photo Tim Lewis
Now that’s not a bad achievement for purely voluntary labour, and
KESCRG have played a major part in the project, contributing 9
weekends and running 3 weeklong summer WRG camps at the site over
the last 3 years.
Meanwhile everyone else spent Saturday scrub bashing the area above
Inglesham lock, while Roy measured up the complicated geometry for
the stop planks required below the lock in preparation for the start
of the restoration of the lock chamber itself.
This was KESCRG’s first visit to
this important project which forms the junction of the Cotswold
Canals and the river Thames just above Lechlade, and the project is
the focus of a national
IWA Restoration Appeal.
There will be a concentrated
effort here over the next couple of years to achieve the same
transformation as that seen at Eisey, and the WRG summer camps and
other visiting groups have already made quite an impact on the site
in the last 12 months. It is a very exciting project and will see
several KESCRG weekend visits in 2012 (starting in January) to
complement the planned summer camps and many weekends committed by
the other WRG regional groups. Just like Eisey, it promises to offer
the perfect mix of demolition, construction and preservation, with
just a bit of brick cleaning and mortar mixing thrown in for good
measure.
On Saturday evening everyone was filled with delicious chilli,
complete with apply-your-own-heat courtesy of a slightly dubious
looking pot of chilli jam, and conversation turned (in one corner of
the hall at least) to the non-Newtonian nature of custard, and how –
if you stamped hard enough – you could quite happily walk on the
stuff. It should be noted that this is before adding the hot milk,
and should almost definitely not be tried at home. Or at the
accommodation. The evening continued from there much as they usually
do – this time at The George.
On Sunday everyone headed to Eisey to scrub bash the pound for half
a mile or so above the lock. The canal is now clear for most of this
stretch, and ground conditions lent themselves to much stump
pulling.
Photo Tim Lewis
Photo Alan Lines
Many thanks to Sophie Smith for leading a potentially complicated
weekend with two groups, lots of people and multiple work sites - it
all seemed to go pretty smoothly as far as I could see… To keep up
to date with restoration progress on the Cotswold Canals, keep an
eye on the Cotswold Canals Trust’s
Latest News pages, which cover work by the professional
contractors at the western end as well as the voluntary labour right
along the canal.
Stephen Davis
Photos courtesy of Alan Lines
and Tim Lewis
Eddie 090112
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