Anglian Cuttings No. 114

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The Inland Waterways Association is a non-profit distributing company limited by guarantee.

Registered as a charity no. 212342 Registered Office: Island House, Moor Road, Chesham, Bucks HP5 1WA

Tel: 01494 783453 Web: www.waterways.org.uk

ANGLIAN CUTTINGS

Award Winning Ipswich Branch

Newsletter No. 114Summer 2009

Australian Canal Society Gathering 2009 at the Blue Lias

2ChairmanChard Wadley

[email protected] Secretary Carolyn WadleySecretary Charles [email protected] Spencer [email protected] Secretary

Clive Saville 01206 [email protected]

Pickerel Project representativeBrian Cornell 01449 721632

[email protected]

Publicity Brian Holt 01502 741345

[email protected] Secretary Diana Holt 01502 [email protected]

Fund Raising Lewis Tyler 01473 [email protected] Cuttings [email protected] River Stour Trust Rep Sue [email protected]

Welcome to our new members

Clive Saville

Mr & Mrs G L & S A Coleman SuffolkMr R Hulett NorfolkDr & Mrs Shattock SuffolkMr & Mrs G W & M Whybrow EssexMr & Mrs G & J Cole NorfolkMiss L Heuer SuffolkMr & Mrs M & C Watkins Essex

Well, this is my last Anglian Cutttings,I have enjoyedwhat I have done but now it is time for a change.I wish the new Ed. all the best for the future issues.We still need input from you members out there, so sendyour bits to the AC email address.... Mick

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Chard

CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

Hello to all, I hope you had a pleasant summer. Ourwinter meetings are fast approaching and you will find the

dates for our winter programme in this edition. However, as we wentto press we were not totally sure of all the speakers so some meetingswill be a nice surprise when you arrive.The WRG work camps, held during the summer, at Baylham Lockwent very well and much work was carried out thanks to their sterlingeffort. (See Spencer’s Report). I would like to say thank you to all theWRG workers on behalf of Ipswich Branch, IWA for all their help.In June Carolyn and I had a 3 week holiday in Canada with our friendsRita and Clive Saville which we all enjoyed very much. We startedfrom Calgary and rode the Rocky Mountaineer Train through theRockies for 2 days to Vancouver. We hired a car for the rest of theholiday covering Vancouver Island, Whistler, Jasper and Banff. Wesaw lots of rivers and lakes but no canals. If you like scenery and wild-life, especially Whale Watching, I can highly recommend a visit.I am writing this report for Michael to include in Anglian Cutting justbefore setting off for another holiday; this time a canal trip with Joanand John Finch on their nb Fringilla. We are cruising from the North-ern Oxford on to the Coventry Canal then the Trent & Mersey throughto the Leeds & Liverpool Canal and then back via the River Trent. Weare hoping for some nice weather along the way.

We are in desperate need of articles for Anglian Cuttings so if anyonehas a story to tell or a memorable trip to report on we would love tohear from you. Also, if anyone knows of any companies relating toboating that would like to advertise within this magazine then please letus know.

See you in OctoberChard.

5Australian Canal Society Gathering, July 2009

The 8th gathering of the ACS washeld on the 12 July 2009 at theBlue Lias, Stockton. Six boatsand 48 people attended on a glo-rious Sunday. We all enjoyed avery good roast dinner and an en-tertaining afternoon. For my sinsI was the organizer and started bywelcoming everyone to the gath-

ering before introducing Jan Roden, President of the ACS, to start the ball rolling bytelling us about events down under. Clive Henderson, National Chairman, then up-dated us on the progress of the IWA. The highlight of the afternoon was a talk givenby Liz Payne, Chairman of the Cotswold Canals Trust, showing us the progress ofthe restoration with a PC presentation. After her talk Jan asked Sandy Paton, SeaLock Keeper at Carron, Scotland, to present Liz with a cheque for £100 towards therestoration of the Cotswold Canals on behalf of the ACS. This money had beenraised by raffles held at the ACS meetings and Sandy had donated some of the wa-terway prizes.We were pleased to have many Aussies in attendance especially as some, such asJohn & Anne Colville and Martin & Sue Smith, had arrived by boat.David Stevenson, Audrey Smith and John Fletcher, all who had been NationalChairman in the past, were also present. John Fletcher was accompanied by his newwife Kate and baby Abi who was the youngest member present. The oldest mem-ber to attend the gathering was Sonia Rolt who has recently celebrated her 90th birth-day. You may have already read that next year will be the centenary of Tom Rolt’sbirth and there are celebration planned which I am sure will include Sonia Rolt so welook forward to hearing more. On the Monday Jan, Carolyn and I helped all sixboats through Stockton Locks and on there way and we returned to Suffolk by car.I would like to close by thanking Brian Stafford and Jane, his daughter, for lookingafter us and making us welcome at the Blue Lias. Chard

6River Gipping Trust – Baylham Lock 2009

The Trust has only been in existence for 2 years but before that the Ipswich branch ofIWA had produced some plans that would, if they worked, see a major step forwardin the restoration of the Ipswich & Stowmarket Navigation. When we saw the plansthere were one or two members of the committee (me included) who felt that wedidn’t have the experience to take it on. However Colin Turner was persuaded tocome out of retirement one last time and take on the role of Working Party Organiserso we decided to go ahead.

In essence the work at Baylham Lock wouldinvolve taking down some 15 metres of lockwall, removing around 60 cubic metres ofsoil from behind the wall, breaking out andremoving around 10 cubic metres of concretefrom the invert, reforming the invert at its cor-rect level using 10 cubic metres of new con-crete, rebuilding the lock wall, pouring

another 15 cubic metres of concrete behind the wall and finally replacing the soil be-hind the wall. All this to be done in 6 weeks commencing 12th July!Because the River Gipping is very prone to flooding it was essential that the workwas carried out as quickly as possible and in the supposed driest time of the year.More of that later! To get the work done we asked WRG if they could provide twofull camps, one at the start and one at the end of the period. We also asked LondonWRG if they could run a weekend camp between the two. Luckily both organisa-tions said yes so using Roy Sutton’s engineering report and recommendations, Colinstarted the detailed planning.

Although we needed to remove the old concrete from the bottom of the lock Royhad advised us that if we did the whole lot in one go there was every possibility thatthe wall next to the mill could start sliding into the lock bringing a 200 year old listedstructure down with it. Our 2 year old Trust would probably not grow up to be 3years old if that happened so the work had to be done in three stages.

7That meant that the replacement concrete could only be poured 6 cubic metres at atime, left to set under water (because we couldn’t keep the site totally dry for 6weeks) and then pump out again and start the next section.During the first camp the weather was glorious and Liz and her team from WRGmanaged to get everything ready for the Friday concrete pour in plenty of time. Be-cause the lock has numerous springs we had to construct a concrete sump and attachplastic pipes to it which would eventually run the length of the lock and feed all thespring water to the sump. These pipes had hundreds of holes drilled in them; theywere then surrounded by gravel, covered with a polythene sheet and finally coveredwith a 50mm blinding layer of concrete. I made that sound easy but Liz’s camp alsohad to remove all the old concrete and then dig down 200 mm and remove thick glu-tinous clay before they could start putting in the pipes.

Come Friday, the day of the concrete pour, wehad the dumpers standing by (the site is only ac-cessible over two bridges with an 8 tonne limiton each so the ready-mix had to come in ½ atonne at a time in the dumpers). Colin had madeit very clear that the lorry had to be with us by9.30am. Finally at 10.30 it arrived at exactly thesame moment as a torrential downpour. The rainitself we could have coped with but the riverfilled up so fast that it started flowing in thewrong direction back into the lock! Frantic workwith sand bags wasn’t enough so we watchedhelplessly as one of the carefully formed edges ofthe invert started sliding down into the centre ofthe lock. A disappointing end to the camp but when we phoned Roy Sutton to ex-plain what had happened things didn’t look quite as black as he reckoned we couldrecover the situation during the next WRG camp.

Next was the London WRG camp and they carried on the work of breaking up andremoving the old concrete from the invert.

8 Colin’s original plan had been for our own group to do a concrete pour after LondonWRG had gone and before the next camp but it became obvious that we did nothave the required manpower for such an operation. We therefore decided that Lon-don WRG would remove all the old concrete during the weekend but we would useACRO props across the top end of the lock below the cill to support the wall whilstwe waited for the next camp.We realised that this was placing a huge burden on that camp (two 6 tonne concretepours in one week) but Ed was leading that camp; he was with London WRG andhe agreed to take it on.

The deal with Ed was that the Trust’s local work force would complete the blindinglayer before he arrived with his team. Unfortunately we were unable to do so as wedecided that we needed stop planks at the lower end of the lock to avoid anotherflood. This took up all our time so when he turned up on Sunday his first task was toget the site cleared, lay the pipes, the gravel, the plastic and the blinding.

I arrived on site at 6.00 am on Monday to switch on all the pumps so that we had adry work area by 8.30. This time the ready-mix lorry arrived at 9.30 as requested andthe concrete pour was complete by 12.30. That included vibrating and tamping to thecorrect profile. We now had to leave that to set before we could carry on with all theother jobs.

One of those jobs was to try and put right the damage caused by the rain during Liz’scamp. Roy told us that we needed to cut out the new concrete to the point where itwas at least 200mm thick over the full 3 metre width of the pour (around 3 sq me-tres) then refill with fresh concrete to the correct profile. This cut- out had to be takendown to the original blinding layer so we hired in a hydraulic breaker. The less saidabout that infernal machine the better. Suffice to say that the hire company gave us a15% price reduction following our complaints.

On Wednesday we removed the ACROs and started shifting the old clay and bricks.This was an even longer job as the spoil that had been removed on Sunday had sim-ply been dumped in the area that we were going to pour on Thursday.

9We had some pretty mucky people come Wednesday evening. On Thursday yetagain I arrived at 6.00 am for the pumps and yet again the concrete pour went exactlyas planned. By now one or two people had been sending photos to Liz with variouscomments like ‘This is how you do it properly.’ I gather she responded somewhattestily.By Friday a significant part of the lock wall had been rebuilt, several tonnes of con-

crete had been poured forbackfill and the invert wascomplete. Our local groupcan now complete the jobwithout the time pressures.

I must record my admirationfor the leaders and crews onall three camps. I’ve done afew camps in my time and Ithink the 2 one week campswere models of how a camp

should be. They had a mixture of ages but everyone got on so well. If a job neededdoing, it got done; the leaders didn’t have to chase after people.

What can I say about London WRG that hasn’t been said on numerous occasionsbefore? Thank the lord we’ve got a group of experts like you willing to share yourexpertise.

It would be invidious to select just one or two names so I will say on behalf of theRiver Gipping Trust THANK YOU ALL. You’re hard work has meant anotherlock on the Ipswich & Stowmarket Navigation has been saved.

Spencer GreystrongTreasurerRiver Gipping Trust

10IWA Ipswich Branch meetings 2009/2010

Please note that due to availability of our room at the Needham MarketCommunity Centre some meetings are NOT on the second Friday of the month.

All meetings start at 7-30 unless otherwise stated and non-members aremore than welcome. There is no charge for attending the meetings but we hold a raffle to offsetthe room hire costs as well as selling tea and coffee in the interval.

Friday 9 October 2009 David Stevenson, former IWA NationalChairman and President of the Foxton InclinePlane trust will give a talk about the Foxton In-cline Plane.

Friday 20 November 2009 Keith Froom will be telling "The Story of theMid- Suffolk Light Railway"

Friday 11 December 2009 Christmas social evening with mince pies andsausage rolls etc. (NOT Fish and Chips)

Friday 8 January 2010 Dinner at The Compasses, Holbrook. Meals to bebooked in advance by the December meeting.Menu, price and time to be confirmed (seatinglimited)

Friday 19 February 2010 Branch AGM and talk by a member.

Friday 12 March 2010 Talk by Steve Haywood, the original “Grumpy”boater and author of the best selling books “FruitFlies like a Banana” and “Narrowboat Dreams”

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IPSWICH BRANCH 36thANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Notice is herby given that the AGM of the Ips-wich branch of the Inland Waterways Associationwill be held at the Needham Market CommunityCentre, School Street, Needham Marketat 8 p.m. On Friday February 19 2010

AGENDA

1. Apologies for absence.

2. Approval of the minutes of the 2008 AGM.

3. Matters arising from those minutes.

4. Chairman’s report.

5. Treasurer’s report and presentation of the accounts.

6. Adoption of the accounts.

7. Statement of committee size.

8. Election of committee members.

9. Regional Chairman’s Report.

12The Birmingham Canal Navigation Society (BCNS) Explorer Cruise

Last year Diana and I signed up for the BCNS Explorer Cruise, we had sucha good time that we decided to join them again this year. If you have ever felt youwanted to visit the quieter, less used parts of the BCN, but you were unhappy doingso alone then this is for you. Next year the plan is to hold the cruise a bit earlier in theyear, hopefully June. If you would like to join them full details will be on their websitehttp://www.bcn-society.co.uk/ nearer the time.

This year’s cruise started at the top of The Curdworth Flight on the Birming-ham and Fazeley Canal (B&F) with 23 boats gathering there on the Monday eveningfor a short briefing on what would happen over the next few days. Start times wereallocated on a very voluntary basis; we elected to go at 10 am. whereas the early birdswanted to be away at 6 am, this was to avoid everyone arriving at the Minworth locksat the same time. Brenda the organiser would be coming up the rear to ensure every-one was OK.

On the morning of Tuesday August 11 at 10 am. we were away; one slighthiccup was that the 9-30 am. boat was facing the wrong way and had to do a 3 miletrip to wind, so we were away about an hour before he returned and Brenda had towait until he came back before she could set off.

BW had been informed of our plans and had 2 operatives at the MinworthFlight to ensure everything went smoothly; in addition another two gentlemen calledAiden and Albert were there to help. These two gents spend their spare time helpingboaters through the Birmingham locks.Brenda and the other boat both caught us up as we worked up the flight. Once clear ofthe locks we continued along the B&F until we reached Salford Junction where wetook the second canal on the left, which is actually still the B&F, and up the AstonFlight of 8 locks, Again Albert and Aiden were on hand to assist. The only problemwe had encountered so far was to ride up on an obstruction under Rocky LaneBridge. At the top of the flight we turned a very sharp left onto the Digbeth Branchand found a number of our party, plus two boats that waiting here to join us, allmoored at the University. We should all have been at Digbeth Basin, but reports of alack of space lead to some people, including us, mooring early. Because we hadmoored early for the night we had to leave an hour earlier on the Wednesday to catchup and needless to say it was bucketing down with rain.

13 We went into Digbeth Basin, also known as Typhoo Basin, for a look round

before following the others down the Grand Union to Bordesley Junction, here weshould have turned left but we actually went into the first lock of the Camp Hill Flightand had to reverse out and correct our mistake. We were now on the Birminghamand Warwick Junction Canal and had the flight of 5 Garrison Locks to do. Thiswould take us back to Salford Junction, again BW were on hand at the first lock toensure everything went smoothly and Aiden had stationed himself further down tohelp on his way to work.

At the end of this canal is a disused stop lock that was built to stop the canalcompanies stealing each other’s water. At the junction it was another left turn, thistime on to the Tame Valley Canal and up the 13 Perry Bar locks to our second over-night mooring at the top of the locks.

Thursday was quite a short day, so Graham on nb. Jannock and I decidedthat when we reached Rushall Junction we would wind the boats and reverse the half-mile back to the M5 aqueduct. We took a photo or two to record the event and thencame back to Rushall Junction and followed the rest up the 9 Rushall Locks to ourovernight mooring at the Longwood Boat Club. Here we enjoyed a good fish andchip supper on the towing path in the evening sun. The evening entertainment wasprovided by Kevin Day, one of our group, singing canal songs and playing his guitar.

Friday was another lock free day, we made our way to Brownhills on theWyrley and Essington Canal to do a bit of food shopping at Tesco and fill with waterat the BW service point. Then we winded and make our way first past Catshill Junc-tion to join the Anglesey Branch, followed by Ogley Junction, where the Lichfieldcanal used to come in, to Anglesey Basin for the night. This is the most northerly

point of the BCN and we moored up ingroups of about 6 for an informal BBQevening.

Next morning it was off downthe Wyrley and Essington as far as PelsallJunction where we all ate out at The Fin-ger Post. Before mooring up we decidedthat a trip to the end of the Cannock Ex-tension was called for.

14 To wind at the end it is necessary to put your bows into the mouth of the

dry dock, where they request that you rope your boat round so as not to form siltingin the mouth of the dock.

Sunday morning we set off to finish the Wyrley and Essington Canal, lastyear this trip took us about 8 hours with several visits down the weed hatch, this yearwe did it in five and a half hours with no trips down the hatch, although we had togive several blasts of reverse to clear debris from the prop. The Floating Pennywortis still growing strongly along this section of canal. We turned right at HorseleyJunction and moored for the night opposite the old Broad Street BW offices on astretch of mooring that is not accessible from the outside world. Some of our fellowtravellers were moored at the top of the Wolverhampton 21 locks and others doublemoored on the towing path opposite us, the remainder spent the night inside the basinat the back of the old BW offices.

After eating onboard we went for a drink at the Great Weston Public House.To get off our mooring we had to get the boat opposite to drift across the cut to act asa ferry to bring us across to the towing path, this procedure had to be repeated whenwe returned home to bed. If you ever visit Wolverhampton a trip to this pub, with avery good selection of beers, is strongly recommended.

Monday was the last day of our cruise and after winding in the basin we allchose our own route to get to the Titford Pump House, the headquarters of the BC-NS. We decided to follow the Old Main Line on the Wolverhampton level as far asOldbury Junction and then turn very sharp right to climb the Crow flight of locks.These locks are slightly unusual, as apart from one pound where a branch used to runoff the flight under the towing path, the towing path side of the pounds and the edgeof the locks are all in line, giving the boaters a straight run through the flight.

The Pump House is just at the top of the flight, but we continued up to thetop of the Titford Canal and into the Titford Pools to wind before mooring above thePump House for the night. We finished our cruise with a BBQ at the Pump Houseand more entertainment from Kevin and another member of our crowd, who alsosings and plays the guitar.You can read our day-to-day diary of this trip by visiting our on-line Blog athttp://nbharnser.blogspot.com/ and looking in the August section for The BCNS Ex-plorer Cruise 2009

15Branch Annual Outing 2010

Next years annual outing is coming together well. The date has been finalised for Saturday andSunday 15/16 May 2010 and the hotel booked.We will be staying at the Holiday Inn, Sandiacre, Derbyshire on a Dinner, Bed and Breakfastbasis, unfortunately we won’t have a swimming pool this year.On the Saturday we will be visiting the Crich Tramway Museum http://www.tramway.co.ukand on the Sunday going for a cruise on the River Trent aboard The Nottingham Princehttp://www.princessrivercruises.co.uk followed by a visit to Woolaton Hallhttp://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1037Here you will be able to take lunch in the cafeteria and for a small charge have a conducted tourof the hall.Again we hope to be using a coach from Turners of Essex with Paul as our very capable driver.Details are still to be finalised but the cost should be in the region of £100 per person and themain pickup points will be Colchester and Copdock. The coach will be travelling along the A14and we can pick up on route at suitable points by prior arrangement.

Following out successful sponsorship of the Real Ale Bar at Canalway Cavalcade this year,Boatshed Grand Union has come up with a new initiative to sponsor the IWA.Boatshed Grand Union is the Inland Waterways Office of Boatshed, the worlds largest BoatBrokerage. We operate on the Grand Union, London Canals and the Lee and Stort, as well asOxfordshire, Herts, Cambs and Beds. We are constantly looking for more boat owners to ben-efit from our cutting edge technology and traditional style service.We will donate £100 to IWA funds for every boat introduced to us by an IWA member thatwe subsequently list and sell. All members hve to do is get the consent of the boat owner tointroduce them, then phone or email Phil Bassett at Boatshed Grand Union with the name ofthe owner and contact details. Members can also gain the donation by introducing their ownboat for sale. As soon as we sell the boat the donation will go to the IWA.Boatshed Grand Union is also looking to recruit agents to start their own business listing boatsfor sale in their area.

Phil Bassett Tel:01923 275139 Email: [email protected] Web:www.boatshedgrandunion.com

16Working party dates

Working parties are held at Baylham Lockfrom 0900 to 1700 every Wednesday and

the first Saturday in the month unless thatSaturday is in a Bank Holiday weekend, thework party will then be held on the secondSaturday.

Colin Turner

Interesting web sites

Ipswich IWA web site http://www.ipswich-iwa.co.ukhttp://rivergippingtrust.org/http://www.flickr.com/photos/ipswich_iwa/ .http://www.waterways.org.ukhttp://www.harnser.infohttp://www.iwapeterborough.org.ukhttp://www.broads-society.org.uk/index.php?page=homehttp://www.thegreenbook.org.uk/home/home.asphttp://www.riverstourtrust.org/http://www.goba.org.uk/http://www.waterscape.com/http://www.savethewaterways.org.uk/

The IWA may not agree with the opinions expressed in this newsletter but encourages pub-

lications as a matter of interest. Nothing printed can be construed as policy or as an official an-

nouncement unless otherwise stated. The IWA accepts no liability for any matter in this

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Anglian Cuttings No. 114