[Music] welcome to Tring Welcome to the Tring reservoirs the Grand Union canal
not the subject of today's video what is the subject of today's video is a
canal that flows backwards and I'm meeting a man called Peter and he
is going to tell me why this video is called the canal that flowed backwards
Now remember coming here as a kid to look at trains because it was the closest Railway to
us that had overhead electric wires but I also remember it had a huge cutting north of Tring 30
40 years before that 1793 Tring cutting was built the canal cutting alongside where the railway was
to be later on and it was one of two Summit levels of the Grand Union Canal significant levels 36
miles from the River Thames on its Journey North 56 locks 380 feet climb to that point so it does
hold some significance to today's story as well interesting each of the locks has got
one of these um pound areas to um to its right I suspect that was used as sluices or to feed
it somehow I'm not sure really not sure let me know in the comments below what those areas for
and here we are lock 45 of the Grand Union canal and just ahead of me the entrance to
the Wendover arm the Wendover Canal old Toll House just there I um Braunston, 55 miles at the
other Summit and Brentford 38 miles down towards Thames. Now I think of a climb over this bridge here
we'll be able to head underneath where we are now and down there which is the Wendover arm not
initially built as a canal it was actually built as a feeder because the other side of Wendover
there were Springs but within a year or so they decided to um turn into a canal.
Canal it only costs another 13 000 pounds more we can get a lot of trade Happy Days
look at his what gorgeous site absolutely gorgeous site beautiful Toll House stuck on
the corner here the entrance to the Wendover arm of the Wendover canal
hello my name is Peter Elwin I am the Partnerships director of the Wendover Canal Trust our
objective is to restore the Wendover Canal from bulbourne down to Wendover where it terminates
it was built solely originally in order to feed the Grand Union canal with water and the lengths
to which they had to go to do this were quite extraordinary they had to divert streams they
had to compensate the mill owners on those streams they had to build reservoirs later
to bring water up to The Canal and all in order to feed the Grand Union with very much needed
water at its Summit at bulbourne. The tring Summit so far so good looks very navigable looks very
picturesque even on this miserable day all right there you've got an overspill, and the
spill goes down into the Grand Union canal it was thought that it might be useful to for it
to be able to carry Goods as well and it did do that but that was a little bit of an afterthought
one thing we've not done a lot of on this channel is explore the more industrial the
urban side of canals makes for a certainly makes for a different backdrop beautiful Old Mill even
this more modern industrial buildings adds to the the backdrop and the essence of a canal love this
well unfortunately these wonderful objectives feeding water from this canal
from this chalk stream were were doomed because only a few years after it was opened began to
leak so during the whole of the 19th century it progressively leaked it eventually got
to the stage later in on in the 19th century where it pulled water out of the Grand Union
this is bad news for the investors so there was nothing to do but to close it I think it was in
if I recall correctly it was in 1902 that it was closed in order to enable the water supply further
along here the water was taken down by our pipe down from the pumping station there it's called
white houses down to the reservoir over here so it still sort of performs the original function
you can tell how the job it is to maintain a canal um when all of a sudden we're in a bit it probably
isn't that navigable maybe we could but it's full of vegetation I would imagine that um a large part
of canal maintenance is gardening because look at this yes you could get through there but you're
gonna clog your workings up by I feel somewhat and this pathway could do a bit of TLC as well
and the only thing that has prevented the leakage is the Wendover Canal trust taking on
the restoration project from Drayton Beauchamp in particular to little tring and Beyond to
bulbourne and that is what it is doing now. Every single person who works for the Wendover Canal
Trust is a volunteer there are 13 trustees, trustee directors supported by 80 or so volunteers who do
um the the physical work yeah um and some of the trustee directors do that as well and are very
expert at it [Music] okay so we're leaving the the section we um we're at just back there with
Peter we're going to carry on our journey towards Wendover Drayton Bridge just up ahead
pretty bleak and gray and concrete maybe needs that um coating of nice brick work [Music]
well we do have this minor problem between 1918 and 1928 Tring Town Council deposited all of its
household waste in the canal that we are having to remove. Local councils such as Dacorum and Tring
Dacorum has inherited responsibility for the canal but Dacorum and Tring are helping with
the funding of the removal of that of that Ash and some coal, household waste and so on except
from Drayton Beauchamp down to uh Bridge 5A this is a new bridge because all of this section here
um as suggested was a diversion to go underneath the a41 which is right there ahead of me
That was close onwards to uh Wendover and the springs that have never dried up
I haven't dried up in a long time 100 years maybe. We hope that in the next three four five
years we'll have continuous water flowing all the way along to Buckland just past Drayton Beauchamp
that'll enable more narrow boats to go as far as Buckland yeah um and then beyond that is the next
phase which is a really quite a major phase because then you're into the raising of Roads
as here is that end section, so
original route of the canal would have been through there straight line of course because the a41 goes
downhill from the Ridgeway down around tring but that just cuts straight through the canal
so uh the bypass of the canal was needed ahead of me gorgeous picturesque view on towards Wendover
Wildlife here is just amazing as always with canals they create a wildlife corridor and there's
all sorts going on ahead of me but I'm no Wildlife expert so I just point at stuff and say oh
what we're always keen to have is people to work more on the networking the public relations
the event side yep um historically we've um we've concentrated on the restoration and
now we're gradually opening up the potential for building relationships with groups is that much
greater so anybody who wants to help with that task would be would be great. All the towpaths
such as this which is extremely muddy in Winter to upgrade and improve and that's um at 250 pounds to
300 pounds per meter but there are huge benefits resulting from that for everybody in the local
area and Runners and cyclists Mobility impaired families with young children with buggys with
everything so that's a great project that I'm particularly keen on myself. Just think about it
as well the center of the road that comes out of tring and the Culvert down there which carries the
Canal's got Bridge six on it which is interesting because obviously there's no Bridge here just
a culvert but a big Culvert so I wonder if those are the original numbers on the bridges I guess so
I've come as far to the end of the canal and Beyond this is the
area where all the Springs were you see what we can find [Music]
the Spring's obviously flowing very well at the moment clearly it's just the end of winter and
I mean I'm not going to see any Springs I guess but here we are here's a stream that would feed
into it from the Springs perhaps further back there and even the culverts there are sort of um
Canal like in their construction with inverted um section underneath it and I wonder where the canal
started that's my only question or ended depending on your perspective there have been a number of
organizations that have been helping us just in the last few years while I've been associated with
um on the Towpath front the Department of Transport has been phenomenally helpful via an
hs2 fund and we're very grateful to the Department of Transport for that but also local councils have
been very supportive local charities, I'd like to thank them for all the all the funding support
they've given but also other local councils such as dacorum and Tring with the the restoration work
and here we are end of the line the end of today's Journey we found some Springs or the
area where the Springs would have come from and gathered into the small stream and here is the
rather picturesque wharf sat just to the uh I guess north west of Wendover big thanks to the trust and
there and time today and you can click on their links in the description below and
all that and yeah if you're local go and help out thanks for watching see you this time next week
[Music]