I've moved down the canal a little bit. I went down through Swarkestone Lock and
on a really nice countryside bit here, very, very quiet. The main reason for it,
even though I had winter mooring up at the top, the towpath was getting really
muddy and I was finding madam with her four feet, rather than just mine, was
trampling mud through the boat and mess and stuff so, I've come up here where
it's nice and dry and it's fine now. It does mean I have to walk across a
certain field to get to the car, but in a weird sort of way, I'm actually closer to
the car than I was at Swarkestone so, there's plus and minuses.
So at this time of year the Canal & River Trust do their winter stoppages.
What that means is they completely stop the traffic going through various parts
of the network and that's purely so that they can do their maintenance. I'm
just walking down the final part of the Trent & Mersey Canal before it goes out
onto the River Trent and at Derwent Lock, they're doing maintenance here. They put
complete stoppages in, so that they can take gates out, replace them, put
different covings in, deal with the cill that's in the bottom of the lock
chamber, basically all the things that they need to do to keep all the boats
navigating around the system, during the rest of the year. Because most of the
boats are moored up in marinas like this, over the winter months, it gives
them time to do them. The stoppages are advertised on the Canal & River Trust
website months and months and months in advance, so people can plan their
way around the system. For example, I was down on the Coventry Canal and I knew I
wouldn't be able to get up past here, to get up onto the River Soar for example.
So I booked my moorings up at Swarkestone. But it just means that you've got to be
aware of the surroundings and be aware of the stoppages. Derwent Mouth Lock was
built in 1777 and is the first lock on the Trent & Mersey Canal. I've traveled
through it many times and it's a well-used lock, allowing boats to travel
back and forth from the River Trent, up onto the canal. With all its use, this
winter it's time for a bit of restoration and repair. A number of
wooden beams or to use their technical term 'stanks' are wedged in place at both
ends of the lock, to seal it. However, water does continue to seep past them, so
ash from steam trains is poured into the water and the seeping flow carries the
ash into the gaps, causing it to make a tighter seal.
[Gulping water sound]
A number of damaged coping stones have been replaced, with handcrafted
stone and once the chamber could be inspected, brickwork could be repaired.
There was some bricks that were actually missing and there were some that were
actually too degraded to be repointed. It's a bit of a toss-up basically, you have
to do a lot by eye because you'll look at things and you'll think, you know, can I,
shall I chop that out, shall I leave it. Ultimately in things this age, you could
just turn around and go, the whole lot needs chopping out. At which point, you've
got a new lock. So to keep the historic structure as intact as possible, the
Canal & River Trust need to restore, rather than replace. As the lock is
listed, they're not allowed to use cement. Instead, they need to use sand and lime
to fix the stones and bricks into place. Some damage is only visible once the
lock has been drained. We found that this gate was dragging on the bottom a little bit.
On further examination, we realised that the actual bracket on the top, that sits around there, one side of
it had snapped. It's made out of cast iron and it had snapped and the actual stone itself
it had got a fault in it and it had separated. So it was letting the whole thing move, so that
was a job that we hadn't anticipated. They've dug it out and are waiting for a
one and a half tonne sandstone to be quarried and brought here by boat. The restoration
here is due to take around about six weeks and it's planned to stop on the
12th of December, even though they have had extra work to do.
And the total cost is around about £120,000. With hundreds of locks
scattered across the country, this time of year is jam-packed with work and
they've only got a small window of opportunity before the canal springs to
life again in March. So if you wanted to come and have a look at this lock,
it's open on the 2nd & 3rd of December.
They've got viewings here, the guys and the team that actually are fixing the
lock and preparing it and restoring it, they'll be here. As well as up on the
canal on the Trent & Mersey, they've got horse-drawn boats going up and down
there. So you can see that, of how it used to be in the olden days and now onto
the River Trent and the River Derwent,
they've got river trips to Sawley Marina. I've included a link in the description
below about this weekend's event. If you liked this episode, please do give it a
thumbs up, leave a comment and until next time, see you later.