you might have to blur the penis graffiti on the side
right matt let's talk shop what was the biggest problem that the Basingstoke canal
encountered uh Basingstoke is a ******* we are literally ah rebecca's found a problem
i mean it's a.... i think she's found a bridge it's a fun problem you call that a problem i
call that solution to getting over the water we've almost lost paul, Matt Assures us he's
found something really quite exciting i've found something really quite exciting
good evening everybody um you join me today paul and rebecca and our resident canal expert matt
on the last five miles of the basinstoke canal now for the eagle-eyed viewer you'll know we've
been here before but we missed a small chunk of it about a mile of it now the reason we
missed it is because well we thought there was nothing here but it turns out that's not the case
so you join the canal trio on the extreme west end of the basingstoke canal now everything
to the east of greywell tunnel is actually still navigable west of the tunnel however
you find this the last five mile stretch and the abandoned part of the basinstoke canal
in particular just that way there about half a mile or so is the old wharf which now lies
under festival place the shopping center and we're going to take a walk around this stretch because
matt assures us he's found something really quite exciting i found something really quite exciting
so technically this is the westernmost part of the Basingstoke canal that you can you can actually
see and walk on uh despite the fact it's abandoned everything else to the west here is the urban park
which is now overtaken by eastrop park the road
and of course the shopping center we're just walking around the curve and i think
we're coming up to a bit of an embankment so before we get to matt's exciting thing
we've also identified a couple of other features which may or may not still be in existence one
of which is a culvert so i think if we go for that hedge just there we might find it
so before we get to matt's exciting thing i was really keen to try and trace any of the remains
of this curved section of the canal shown on the side by side maps here from the national
library of scotland the bottom corner here on the modern view has quite a striking tree line to it
by this whole area has been a red herring we think there's so much infill from the road
uh adjacent to us the a339 uh the very loud road this time of day and we think the whole
of this area is complete red herring we came up what we thought was the embankment but we've
relocated ourselves and we don't think so our fears were confirmed
when we realized that we could flip to the lidar on the national library of scotland map site
the entire corner here has been filled in and over likely with spoil from the recent road over there
is where we're gonna head we go down to the level of the canal another lidar shows that we can
see that and then we're gonna head round to uh what do we keep calling it matt's
exciting thing matt's exciting thing right
and that is literally sort of i don't know what 400 meters that way
a little bit of a jingle we need a jingle right we have a jingle for max exciting
someone make jingles matt's exciting thing no more man okay right that way
so we're thinking where matt has stood people that's matt obviously that's rebecca that's matt
matt that's rebecca that's a tree we're thinking that that there is the alignment of the canal
don't remember many abandoned canals that we walked along in all of our time
we've been so difficult to trace we just spent the last 10 minutes thinking we were on a certain
level we weren't matt's now stood on the southern side of this section of the canal for definite
i don't think i was a toe puff i think the toe path was that side but again there's no
sign of it you've got the a slight dip here but all of this was just infilled and obliterated
um so we're going to carry on heading that way i think if we can get through those stinging hills
so so matt what is the biggest what was the biggest problem that the Basingstoke canal had
water water lack of right so how that leads us to what you have recently found
um which may or may not relate to the canal under promise and over the liver well yeah who knows uh
Rebecca's found a problem i mean there's a fight i think she's found a bridge it's a fun problem
i mean you call that a problem i call that solution to getting over the water all right
squidgy
right matt rick ground zero yeah ground zero ground zero just through there is matt something
exciting my super secret super thing yeah so what we're looking at what we found we've
found a pumping engine pumping engine right engine so we don't know what this is for
we assume it should have something to do with the canal the fact that it was low on water
or short on water all the time absolutely there's potentially that this pumping engine
was used maybe to take some of the water out of all the the the rivers and the springs here
up into the canal because there's a lot of water right underneath us now actually isn't there
yeah so come on where are we going we're going that way yonder yonder
so that's told us to go through this hedge here down this little pathway um
i mean we're really off the beaten track here i'll say off the beaten track i mean in the
hedge oh wow and there is in front of us an old building right so this is it matt now this appears
on nearly all of the old side-by-side maps yep certainly the 25-inch yeah so we're talking about
them 1880s at least yeah but it does look the brick looks pretty good condition yeah so
whether it's been re-re-bricked can repurposed at some point perhaps but pumping engine that
says to me it moved water from a different level so let's have a look inside shall we
right trying to give this some context in terms of what we're looking at so
this side is the west side and the water goes in about two feet below
my feet there about two feet below my my actual feet there so this side on the other end
the water comes out probably four feet below so from that side to that side
there's a difference of about two feet
so all credit to matt look at the size of this old will so firstly i should say i am
definitely no expert on water wheels and their uses so let's try and unpick this with some
logic secondly the wheel aside from all the mineral deposit
looks relatively flat so that doesn't really give us much to go on now at the far side though
we do have a handful of large cog workings can you see them all there in the distance
now as this is referred to as a pumping house or pumping engine could they have been attached to a
beam engine or a steam engine of some kind to make the water move to move the wheel and
then move the water if not then it's the other way around and the water move the cogs to power
something else a multitude of possibilities that were not water and therefore not canal
so inside doesn't really help us let's go and have
a look either side and see if we can gain any more info
there's a wooden sluice gate now the sluice gate's got its own gearing on
it so obviously there was a handle maybe or something to move the sluice get up and down
so they did control the water going in here at this point of entry by this loose gate just here
you can also see the wheel behind it which has got cast iron um bucket so the wheel would have turned
uh clockwise as we look out from that way the wheel would turn clockwise around like that
and you can see the gearing attached to it so it did suddenly use the gearing the other side
in what is now an old shed to make i don't know turn something else that's where we're
lost that's where we need a bit more help from you guys to let us know what this was
so the water went in at that end and left it the other so we assumed the will was powering
something not something moving water via the wheel and therefore not canal related so let's
have a quick look at the other end and the tunnel to the east roughly where the water left the house
so for context the pumping house is 30 yards that way from the pumping house as you saw on
the shop it goes left underneath this tunnel so why have a tunnel here it's quite well engineered
but again it doesn't look 1794 so so let's go under
it's curved as well actually curved that's beautiful
right so just climbed out from underneath there where the tunnel is and we've just been chatting
about what this could have been for what the pumping engine was for and we are left with a
big sort of headache in terms of we've got a clue basically everywhere we're thinking that
it didn't lift or raise the water or if at all it lowered the water by about two feet but that was
to just drive the wheel the wheel turns clockwise matt you saw the gearing a couple of gear wheels
in there yeah so so it was used to turn another something else um but the mills are up there
the mills for this part of the area are another hundred yards that way and why i have a tunnel
there as well tunnel so i think we're going to have to put this down to a mystery there's
a lot more questions and if we have more time um it's up on seven we need to get back to the
cars because they're going to lock that car park so we better do that so we're going to sign off
for the minute thanks to matt for showing us this wonderful little relic hidden away just to the uh
east of basingstoke uh but for rebecca and matt and i will see you next time
mystery number two of the day rebecca what happens
in the car park between like the 1st of april and the 19th of april