A quintessentially rural canal, the 33 mile long Grantham traverses three shire counties
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May 13th 2006
Friday the 12th of May was a beautiful day not only weather wise but in the fact that it was my birthday so it was no surprise that Saturday was wet and horrible but never mind we carried on from the previous meeting two weeks before. We asked British Waterways if we could carry on whilst we were all keen. They very kindly said that our ECP form would cover it as long as we checked for nesting birds so we met up and carted our kit down the towpath to where we left off. There were dozens of small trees sprouting up from the bed from small twigs and sticks, which had either been thrown in or left from the Bonfire Bash of 2004. We lugged the Tirfor winches, which are the hardest things to drag around, across, what was a dry bed but is now nearly a foot deep and rising, and set to. We pulled plenty out and piled them on the far bank and moved along the bed. Then it started to rain so we all started getting nicely wet but we were all pulled to our senses by a large splash when Tony stepped back into the hole left by a pulled tree and fell into the water that had poured in. We all looked rather dry in comparison. Tony had set up a table on the towpath for information to passers-by but decided that in his new state he might scare people off if he started to talk to them through chattering teeth. People would think he was speaking digitally and start to run off only to slip all their length in the puddle he would have left. Just before his ‘make over’ he spoke to a very nice girl on a bike with very short shorts –stop that kind of talk this web page has only got a U certificate. She is interested in restoration and will join us when she returns to the area from university. We also had a visit from one of our members who had only received information about the special meeting we had on the 10th of May where she had complained. I apologised and took her on a tour of the section to explain everything. When she went home she fully understood the amount of work that is done by the few and said she will be taking a more active role in future so some good came of the day. We will require several more bashes at this site to complete it. Around the corner at Odd House Farm the bed is totally overgrown on one small section and we will either start on that or move to Knipton Feeder to clear all that as agreed with BW for their maintenance program. Fliss and Vanessa paid us a visit – they joined last October when we were working at Cropwell Bishop and took away two trailer loads of logs. I told them there will be more round the corner and they said they will be there. Recently Tim started with us after seeing about our weekend camp at Harlaxton Cutting on the Waterway Recovery Group web site. He said he would bring his friend Matt along who then came to the last tree cutting session two weeks ago. His girlfriend Victoria came to see what he was up to and has joined herself saying it was great what we were doing. It is fantastic having young people joining us because we were starting to get worried that we regulars are getting a bit worn out. Good on you mates you are more than welcome.
One strange thing showed up is that the soil that the canal banks are made of are different to the surrounding fields as I think it was made of spoil from the cutting. Fred says that the 180 ft contour veers off around the fields at that point so they took the chance of building a small embankment and ran the canal in a straight line. Now we know that there is a layer of stone around that area, hence the quarries but didn’t know quite where. Well, as the small trees were being pulled out of a section that could be classed as ‘moist’ we noticed a layer of stone, like a floor. I said, “I didn’t know the canal was Roman” and everyone said that we should call Tony Robinson because they would have it all cleared out in three days. But as we pulled more up we could see that it was a complete stone bed completely flat with all the stone fitting beautifully together. Now if this was the layer of stone and it just happened to be on the 180 ft contour what a fantastic coincidence or brilliant planning. It wasn’t an artificial floor because it was much too perfect and it wasn’t dug into during construction so it must be original. We cleared up around five and three of us went to Woolsthorpe to return the tools to the container. Another great day |
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