probably shouldn't do this but....
good morning everybody hello welcome to another video and we love making videos about old railways
but we love making videos about old canals oh but which one's better there's only one way
to find out what is that toss a coin i got a coin oh handy right heads or tails heads
heads that doesn't work already gonna know we're doing a video about a canal, right tails you mean
tails so we've gotta do a video about an old canal oh come on let's go
in the late 1700s the height of the technology at the time transportation technology was canal
building and a man called robert whitworth was tasked with surveying the land between
uh poole and bournemouth right up towards bristol and bath and with the goal of connecting the
english channel with the bristol channel now this would have been a fantastic feat at the
time because it would connect those two ports so today's search is for part of that canal we're
now at nettle bridge we're near nettle we're looking for nettle bridge basin which is where
the western end of a branch of this canal was built we've got edford bridge is that edford
bridge we're going to have a look in a minute but what we're trying to do is we're trying to find
the basin so the first part of this canal that was built was the base well i can't see i mean
we're looking this way there's a river down there so it had to have been separate from the river
um but we can't see the house there's lots of masonry sort of underfoot
right what you got Rebecca stood on a bit of stone stone masonry or something yeah there's quite a
lot of it all along here right so we're assuming this has to be part of it perhaps yeah don't know
all along there where that trackway is here there is a masonry wall all the way along there as far
as the corner of the the field up there so we're pretty sure that nettle bridge basin would have
been here and this marks a left-hand wall of it that's fascinating um but you can still see the
remnants 200 years ago this was abandoned and you can still see the remnants of the basin that was
here where the canal boats were planned to have um stopped right we're going to carry on that way and
look for edford bridge which is a well it would have been the exit for the nether bridge basin
so this was built 220 years ago Rebecca and it looks like it was built 220 years ago doesn't
it it does yeah they've infilled the bottom of it presumably to help it stay up i guess because
otherwise it would make a nice route through um but yes it's a beautiful little old bridge
one of the um great ideas and the concept of connecting uh the port of paul up to
bath and bristol and beyond was wonderful at the time because how else would you transport across
that route now if you had goods coming in from the south and you wanted to get them up to bristol you
had to either choose from a horse and car now you can imagine horse and car you can't really
carry a lot in terms of the weight um or you have to go around the whole of the coast right around
the south end of cornwall I should imagine and not ideal so the concept and the idea of a canal
through this section of the country was seemingly a really good economical investment there's lots
of assumptions we're making but you're kind of trying to try to pick out where the canal went
and of course hardly ever used and built as um as late as 230 years ago and then all of a sudden you
come across a bit like this and you think yeah okay we are on the right track so below us we've
got loads of bits of masonry a bit of old lumps of masonry down there and you've got what looks to be
on a tow path right now you've got a nice carved bit out in front of us here basically on the other
side so without doubt i'm certain this is a good intact bit of the canal that still remains today
whitworth was a busy man he learned his trade from the likes of james brindley
and subsequently he was all over the country working on different projects he recommended a
local engineer william bennett from just down the road in froome to look at different parts of the
route and ultimately his route william bennett was chosen at least for this part of the canal
all right folks my issue with this video and already in my head i'm thinking about the edit
my issue with this videos i'm really quite excited and i know i've got loads of little
bits i want to put in and sometimes we're kind of cautious we don't want to put too much waffle in
tough luck there's a lot of waffle in this video because this is really exciting so down
there again great example all the way along there you can see as far as the eye can see
150 yards that way around the corner really good example of the canal
all right so as we continue our walk from ham uh eastwards towards colford our next stop is
the coalford aqueduct so that's where we're heading next um so yeah from the banks of the
the canal here the top half of the canal and ham we should join you up at colfoot
so um we've been speaking to a guy called andrew on email who owns property next the aqueduct the
hucky duck um but we don't know which property he lives in because there's two that you could have
access to so it's a bit awkward really we want to knock on someone's door but we're not sure which
but in the meantime have a look at this spectacular hockey ducky aqueduct
all right so we just bumped into.... well didn't bump into, we've been speaking this lovely guy
called andrew and his wife um andrew has this house we've been speaking to a little while we
planned to come and have a look at the wonderful hucky duck correct huckey duck aqueduct what
a beautiful structure, well it was started or built around 1797. yep there was two aqueducts
built one here in a another one in a village further along okay so says built 1797 started
then to join up two canals but apparently the saying goes they run out of money so it stopped
and was left um the name hockey duck they again the local historians told us because the
people here were very low educational standard couldn't get their the voice around aqueduct
Fantastic around the turn of the end of the victorian era it was still fairly complete with
all these facing stones on the side yeah and then there come a an expansion of the local village
and it was around the 1900s a lot of the face and bricks were taken off to
build locally uh yeah it makes sense yeah um and including if you look at our house the ones with
the lines on some of them have been used here this was built in the 19th century all right okay yep
um and then we've got a stream up there there's some in there
it looks like it's been taken apart and people have just taken what they wanted
once it's built it's also never filled with water it's never been used
no okay so then i just filled it out with mud obviously been vandalized to a degree
it's just been left so now it's ours to look after us yes grade two listed
um and we don't want to do things wrong keep down on the vegetation because the roots can affect it
yeah also my history from the railways on the railway for years smaller routes can actually bind
things together okay so you don't want to destroy the good side you do want to destroy the bad the
trees should come down yeah and then when it's all done it's not much use to us up there to be honest
so what we was hoping to do was put in solar panels and batteries to cut down
on electricity usage literally on top of it oh yeah yeah exactly so it's not exactly it's
not good affects us or anyone else just high enough one thing you didn't hear
just a minute ago there's a nuclear bunker under here the escape matches in the garden
and the bunkers underneath it's not actually a nuclear bunker it's a nuclear survival shelter
it's made for people to go into to survive for a number of weeks to get rescued um wow it's got um
uh the the air filtration system yeah it's got a hand cranking uh generator system it's also got
telephone links to certain points out here yeah so elizabeth and andrew have been telling us a
few other bits about the um the house and the cold war bunker and there's also a culvert that
goes right underneath the house across the garden just be careful wherever you are yes yep indeed
what we plan to do because this is awkward is where the pool house is there
yeah you want to put in like a galvanized fire escape from an office
block
so we just climbed up the um climbed up the hill they've
gotta be a bit careful coming back down again yes
so here we are stood on top of the um hockey duck aqueduct built in eight
uh 1797 abandoned a few years later
and uh andrew has just advised not to go too close to the edge which clearly we're not gonna do
Oh Rebecca, what a lovely couple right i don't know how to approach this but
we normally say don't come to places like this it's not fair you've got to get in touch with
them first like we did. But this guy is very keen for you to get in touch if you can help
he's got a lot of products he owns a lot of the land up that way he's off the new clearing
they want to do some different projects on the um the aqueduct itself obviously
with permission from the council because it's great to enlisted but he's after help and advice
so i'm gonna put his email address in below as he requested um used to be a london underground
tube driver fascinating guy and he wants help with advice bits and pieces on how to approach
things and how to do things because right how can you do it right so if you're an environmentalist
and you know how to look after the wildlife side of things if you know what type of pointing needs
doing that would fall in line with a grade two listed building all those kind of questions get in
touch with them on an email lovely chap, lovely couple so big thanks to andrew and Elizabeth.
okay forgive the interruption it's now 12 to 12 and a half minutes into the video and i'm sat
thinking to myself as i edit there's loads more to come yeah it's gonna be like a half an hour long
video yeah yeah so we're kind of thinking actually we will um we're going to split this into two
and we think we've got enough in this little video to make it nice and punchy and short
next week there's a heck of a lot more as well so a rare occasion is part one and part two
make sure you're subscribed because there's a lot more of the story to come yet about the
people that built the canal and they navigated it um the fossils the locks all sorts to come next
week so make sure you're subscribed click on the notification bell and we should join you next week