we make no secret on this channel that we love looking at some of the quirky inventions and
adaptions that the canal and Railway Engineers came up with during their era to try and overcome
problems "when they're going to be when are we open yeah how long is a piece of string
and today is one such Journey on a canal we've never been on
before the Wiltshire and Berkshire canal foreign [Music] and welcome to the canal
invention that the canal Engineers really didn't like to use [Music]
go get your leg get your leg over Rebecca come on please it's not easy is it
oh cracking yeah you've got to turn around because you can't kind of [Music]
somebody definitely doesn't want you to get in there there's a significant barbed wire
fence random elephant sculptures in there too have a look at this shot of an OS map
you'll see something extremely rare canal under construction that's exactly what this is this
is part of the wiltshire and Berkshire Canal now opened in 1810 and abandoned by 1914 so
classic sort of canal story but this canal well it was hugely important in the canal Network had
the railways not come along then potentially it would have been a significant link because
it linked the Kent and even Canal up to the Thames and I think even then it had another
Branch going from it up to the Thames and seven so network was quite extensive we're not going to
try and do all of the wheelchair and boxer can now have one big hit just going to do sections
at a time and today we're going to show you some really quirky features of this canal from
uh lacock I'm just going to join it just up here on our way to pewsham and put some locks [Music]
canal but eventually we found this first section now as you saw on the map it said
under construction which basically in this term means uh restored or being
restored and there is a section up ahead of us which is restored you probably won't find
too many boats on there or narrow boats and vessels unless there's some extremely Keen
uh boaters of course because I think it's only a short section because we're still
in the very swamp-like part here although we do now have a good top to walk on we're nearly
a bit now where I'm going to show you one of the first quirky features of the day foreign
because there's no airports around here nothing like it there's a military turns
out Ray Mill House, Ray Mill house is owned by Camilla Parker Bowles and for those of
you who don't know Camilla Parker balls is she's married to the current King of England
um because I appreciate there's a lot of you that don't watch from uh this country and uh
often criticize my lack of knowledge on Kings and Queens so I apologize nevertheless the
um you know there's a current King I know there's a currency this is good thank you
[Music]
one of the problems that Canal builders always had was a lack of water always a major problem
reservoirs were built for them pumping houses quirky inventions were built just to try and
keep the water level in the canal topped up but what we never really talk about is what you have
what problem you have if you have too much water and it seems that the wheelchair and
Berkshire cow certain on May occasions did have that problem I think one of the solutions to that
is literally just up ahead of us I keep saying that I'm conscious I keep saying how many times
ahead of us just just bear with people because there's a couple of really cool things coming up
we're just now looking at what I've been waffing about for quite some time this is
finally got there this is Horseshoe over spill sounds really simple and the reason they hated
using these is because when it meant they had too much water so having to use an over spill
is a complete disaster for a kennel engineer because it means they're wasting the water
in some ways but nonetheless they've recently restored this I say recently probably a couple of
um more than a couple of years I've now stood in the the channel for it so basically if your water
gets too high you don't just want to let it go over the top because you're going to flood the
banks you're going to damage the top off you're going to completely mess up the lining of the
canal everything's going to go wrong so if you built a channel underneath the uh the Towpath
itself into this which is then allows the water to rise up here safely comes down here and off
down there into the river Avon we might have seen a couple of Clips already at the river
Avon but that's where all the water went scrub everything we just said because here is the real
horseshoe over spawn it's really quite beautiful and it also shows you the the level of the canals
and water was often very quite finer because if they've had a summer where they haven't had to
use the canal all of a sudden now within a month we've got the water at this peak on that Weir on
that horseshoe over spill look at this bill this is a beautiful piece of engineering I'm gonna try
and face in this way all the time there's a big pump in the background um but look at this this
is is quite some significant structure on how they kept the um the canal from overfilling and ruining
the towpaths and the banks along its side the maintenance of water quite high and they've now
installed this wonderful little um so they can maintain the water level up to a certain point
[Music]
right so this is where things get a little bit interesting because this
is Fusion locks just ahead of us and there's a whole bunch of fascinating stuff going on here
now as you'll note this is me waffling about it all right now there's a base in here and
there's another Basin so the basin's worked on the same principle but then we bumped into basil
now basil is one of the volunteers here an 85 year old volunteer at that who really knows
his beans so let's let basil do the talking instead of me yep so we're at pewsham locks
yeah yeah see there are three locks in the in the flight yeah with a pound between each one
uh we're just going to start rebuilding the the other Wing wall of the bridge this is a
bridge that goes across here there's the other wall up there you'll see the footing of it and
we're just extending the end of this now we used to have a ramp that ran down from where
Bob is yep round donuts so we can get Machinery in and out but we can now move that down further
down so the concrete blocks you've done there is that basically the foundation of the Walling here
you're just going to carry that on and that'll be the side of the the Basin here that's right
and that runs into the lock which is the next lot which is in there a pile of uh rubbish so
this one is almost a job from scratch it looks on the face of it originally originally the wall here
was a dry stone wall Castle Stone okay back with Clay yep not no concrete no nothing because it was
built in 1790 so yes yeah yeah yeah but we we've put footing in here obviously and we're building a
front wall there this will be filled with concrete next week yep um up to the level of the top of
that block then we will build the rest of the wall like what you've got back there yeah it's
wonderful that will then die into the wing wall that comes out of the yeah you can see there's
the end yeah but you've used some parts already we noticed the double bridge um back towards lacock
it looks like you when you've restored that you've you've kept as much as you can yes we do and sort
of just top these blocks or reclaim oh wow so you are going to use these yes oh okay great so what
about your rebuilding you're still still using the original bricks we can yes wow this is Middle lock
as you can see it's got trees growing in it yeah and it's in a very bad state right we have been in
there but it's not safe to go in there now is that because of it's falling into pieces deep Mucky
water no there's not much water in there it's it's the fact that the wall on this side yeah is
damaged it's very badly damaged right and there's a little overhang there yeah you know what I mean
yeah of course yeah and this is not all has to be dug out built up because it's all gone obviously
so will you have to wall the other side of the basement no or is that a case of it it looks quite
good absolutely that's what it was yeah so I mean in terms of here you've done the Walling already
yeah you know this this looks relatively complete other than a few obvious bits and pieces but the
down here we'll have to take out probably about 18 inches of silt right to get them to the clay yeah
okay over the years it's just washed in yeah um and this is where we've built because this Wall's
finished we've built a ramp against it so we now got another way in with the jumpers and figures
Etc yeah bottom lock is again you can see the wing wall which we've built there in the curve
of it goes around into the uh into the um to call this loose chamber wonderful and then of course
you've got what I've never really seen so close to lock Gates before it's a dry dock yeah that's
that one over there and that's the brickwork on that thing it has already claim bricks again yeah
um and we're just in the process of putting a roof on it right okay it will happen but it's
an open-sided yeah it'll just have a roof no no sides to it so million dollar question when is
it going to be when are we open yeah how long is piece of Street yeah because it's because it's not
it's money of course yeah in this obviously very expensive job yeah yeah we we know we we rely on
donations and yeah applying for various grants that are available but that's basically where we
get our money from and it just depends how much we get in and how much uh we have to get done
for notes by outside contractors yes of course we do a lot of the work ourselves yeah yeah but
they're obviously I think that that not there will be an outside contract really right because of the
dangers involved yeah fair enough uh the bottom one we hope that we can we can actually rebuild
that ourselves okay because it looks looks fairly good the firewall is fine yes well this side which
has been partly rebuilt in any case yeah the canal itself is broken up into five branches okay so
we we're responsible for the piece from melksham to Foxham right and then there's a branch called
proximity which takes you up over the line of Bank yeah you're a flight of nine that's I think it was
nine or seven locks oh don't see way yes yeah seven isn't it yeah and then you go from there
through to Swindon yeah and you've got Eastvale and Westway which takes you up to so you've got
your teams basically yeah you're almost set in teams and that's how you're gonna that's true
[Music]
I think they've run out of petrol so from the banks of the very beautiful Wiltshire
and Berkshire Canal the one mile restored section and we're gonna bid you farewell
it's been absolute Joy a big thanks to the Wilkes and box Canal societal trust I always
get that wrong and the volunteers who who spoke to us today we will
certainly be back have a look at some more quirky projects from along this route hope
you've enjoyed it if you do click on the old like button and give that a bit of a Boop um
thanks for watching people see you next week
[Music] thank you