COTSWOLD Canals Trust is offering keen gardeners and canal
supporters the opportunity to acquire a rather different garden
ornament – while at the same time contributing towards CCT’s aims of
reopening the Stroudwater and Thames & Severn canals.
Visiting the Trust’s storage compound at Brimscombe Port recently,
Stroud District Council Canal Volunteer Coordinator Ian Moody
spotted eight assorted remnants of old lock gates removed from the
canal during restoration, and had a bright idea. The lumps of timber,
still complete with metal attachments, might make attractive
garden features with a bit of history – a lockery rather than a rockery,
as it were.
So offers in the region of £30 each are being invited – with all
proceeds going to support canal restoration. You’ll need to collect
them, and it will probably take two of you to lift each one. See
cotswoldcanals.com or drop in at the Trust’s Brimscombe Port
secondhand bookshop between 10am and 4pm on Tuesday, Thursday
or Saturday and ask to be shown them.
12 February 2018 Canal Boat canalboat.co.uk
NEWS
Fancy a garden lockery?
ADDING 1km to the total length of the navigable waterways might
seem a modest ambition compared to the hundreds of miles that
have been restored and reopened over the years, but Waterway
Recovery Group’s volunteers plan to achieve it in a single year, as
they launch their 2018 Canal Camps programme.
Working with restoration trusts and societies across the country,
their week-long working holidays aim to bring short sections of
four projects to the rewatering stage, on the Derby, Lichfield,
Montgomery and Lancaster canals – as well as working on seven
other restoration schemes. And WRG’s successful foray into family
volunteering in 2017 will be broadened with weekend camps for
families with children (aged 8-14) on the Grantham, Chelmer &
Blackwater and Uttoxeter canals.
In what WRG Chairman Mike Palmer described as “an exciting
year for us”, WRG’s volunteers will be “found restoring locks,
relining canals, creating towpaths, removing vegetation and
uncovering archaeological artefacts”.
See our feature on Page 62 for more about how WRG’s camps
will help to expand the navigable network across the country.COTSWOLD CANALS
WRG goes the extra kilometre
We’ve reviewed some unusual
waterways books over the years,
but we think this is a first: a free
e-book of knitting patterns inspired
by masons’ marks on the
Bridgewater Canal, which could
provide boating knitters with
something to occupy the long darkwinter evenings on board.
Stonemasons often cut a
distinctive mark into each stone, to
show which work was theirs – and
these can still be seen on the canals.
Make Your Marks is “a collection of
contemporary knitting patterns”
inspired by these marks and other
shapes seen along the canal. Theyinclude cushions, a hat and a
tea-cosy – or you can incorporate
the shapes into your own design.
The book, created by artist and
knitter Rachael Elwell, can be
downloaded free from the EST.
Bridgewater Canal community
heritage website at http://est1761.
org/learn/make-your-marks.BRIDGEWATER CANAL
The Bridgewater in wool...
Get involved! Plan your 2018 Canal Camp with Waterway Recovery Group