hi everybody my name is paul and i am rebecca and we explore old abandoned routes essentially today
you find us on an abandoned canal now you'd be forgiven for thinking where we are now
is not actually abandoned because there's a couple of boats there's a lovely canal
basin in front of us and yeah so it looks not abandoned yes however if you have a quick look
on google maps and you go about 400 meters around the corner that is the end of this restored canal
basin that's it about 400 meters so join us today as we explore the abandoned herefordshire
and gloucestershire canal also known as the hereford and gloucester canal
so the first part of today's journey along the herefordshire and gloucester
canal sees us on the southern section now much of this was overtaken or built over by a railway
sort of 1880s so not a lot of survivors but if you have a look on some old national library of
scotland maps you can see the odd bit where it sticks out from the railway and here just to the
east of newent is a great example of that because ahead of us now is the cut of the abandoned canal
where it curved around this slope ahead of us on the south side of newent
super oh that's quite quite it's quite a deep cut isn't it it is on on a lot of the
older abandoned canals we see we don't see this so much but it's much much more shallow
so we're just walking this very beautiful bit of the uh the canal just north of newent and
over there in fact i can see it through there is a a branch line a branch on the canal it's called
the coal branch line to try and take advantage of a coal scene that was just over there didn't
take off because the coal was apparently not that good of quality and we bumped into some members
uh three people walking this part of the canal one of them just happens to be the
secretary promised it wasn't organized so we'll just have a very quick chat with him
so we just bumped into you guys um off on the road by complete chance
do you want to introduce us who you are what are your aims what are you up to we ought to start
with the lady first ginny would you like to say ginny i've lived in this area for six years and
just want to be involved with canal restoration but understand from previous experience that it
doesn't happen overnight and therefore my my sort of task if you like is to encourage as
many people to volunteer as possible so what's what's the next product what are we doing today
well yeah we're finding out about the canal because uh i'm tony uh mate dave and we've only
joined the canal trust very recently um and so we want to find out what has been done on the canal
and it's got a very interesting modern history as this canal because some work a lot of work
started in the late 80s and early 90s and bits were opened up yeah and then sort of things
went a bit quiet for one reason or another but now there's new people joining there's a new chairman
and we're really hoping that we can make a difference and make things start to happen again
um but what it needs is people it needs people and it needs people and it needs a bit of money
and it needs landowner permission with those three things money people and landowners
yep you can build yourself a canal we we work on a section at yarkhill and monkhide which had
been uh dug out back in 1992 with the inland waterways authority and the volunteers there
and uh it's really extreme gardening now so so what can people do to help um we obviously
there's make a donation but i'm sure you guys as you've already sort of alluded to people
well there are working groups along the length of the canal
which are local little communities in their own right what even if you don't have any specific
skills um it's just lovely to come out and be part of the big family to yeah to help come
forward we we've got i mean with joint members and family members and things we've got around
a thousand just over a thousand members at the moment of the canal trust but of course
there's a lot more other people than that in gloucester and hereford yes who probably would
if they knew about it yeah so get on the website get on the website drop you an email that's the
one get the ball rolling yep lovely to meet you yeah after the problems that ralph had and you
had to remove things i just think it's a mate i'm sorry i just think it's amazing we bumped into you
they also aren't aware of the the solution to the mystery the mystery being the cold branch
just to our west sorry 30 yards that sloped off around the the hill there is about 10 foot
higher now there are no more locks on this section they said there never was any more locks on this
section and he's looked at one and dave looked at one of the oldest ones and it's not on this it's
not even like it was and then it got demolished yeah so how is it everybody here's your question
for the day how is it that the coal branch is around about 10 foot higher than the canal
just here when it joins around about 100 yards ahead i think there is a lock and there must be
a lock just to the north so let's have a quick look through here through there must have been
the remnants of the lock because it splits just there into the two branches or the seven and the
coal branch and all of a sudden down there it's a lot steeper so here there must have been a lock
oh just crossed a mountain of Hills just trying to find the next section of the canal south of
ledbury um and two tunnels the tunnels are gonna form part of a separate video because there's a
lot of info about them and a lot of fascination so join us uh in a few weeks so we're just speaking
about the history of the canal and how it formed and 1777 this canal was first conceived as a root
john witworth was involved josiah clowes we've seen both of those two before um but it took
almost another 20 years to get things uh built and underway and i have no idea where we're
going i think we're going down the hill there rebecca okay so i think it opened to 1798. is
that correct that sounds right 1798 john whitworth has had helped build the thames and seven canal so
he's not sort of unfamiliar with this area and the landscape and how to navigate it but
the amount of times it was surveyed re-surveyed to keep things going it was a quite a surprise
we think that massive drop down there for about 15 feet
the culvert is probably a feeder for the canal because there is a um a pond the other side of
the m50 and this culver gets deeper and deeper and heads into the trees behind us which is where
you find the northern portal of the tunnel again another video ah it goes down that way down there
into the trees above the northern portal and already we've come to some masonry which we
presume again is for the the feed of the elite that we found there that goes down into the canal
and there's a steep drop down i feel like we're going to find something quite positive here
so we've just done our bit for the tunnel video oxen home tunnel just down there in
that big crevice we're now heading further north on the next section of our canal journey so 1798
opened and our huge cost but only opened as far as library or one mile south of ledbury
that was it they're out of money now so this part of it was had envisaged to hold 33 000
tons a year of of goods well it wasn't going to do that because they'd only made it as far as ledbury
now the next issue they had was traversing uh from ledbury across to heritage
oh i'm shattered me too it's late already we're behind we started a bit late
late yeah we're now between the tunnels we're between uh oxenhall oxford hall oxford hall
and aspartame tunnel and it's a beautiful section we've got some wild garlic in front
of us which is now all flowers yeah it's pretty it's beautiful but for the time being onwards too
i've no idea ledberry direction i guess i guess so
so between the two tunnels we're now nearly ashperton uh tunnel on the uh northern
part of this canal and this section is extremely flooded
and apparently that's because the guys at the trust were saying it that way is a big dam in
place that's what they hope to remove at some point during the the reintroduction of this canal
and uh it's probably now around about four or five deeper four or five feet deeper than
what it should be it's hiding a towpath ashperton tunnel itself has a towpath on the left hand side
and i think once they take out that plug that is the dam then of course it will dewater this area
to a significant amount that they can then start to look at what shape the tunnel is in
i get trampled by a cow um so rebecca after you really there's one right by my door
so you join us back now um between ledbury and herefordshire and we're on the the last section
that was built of this canal they built this um this part of it in sections and every time
they completed a bit they opened it had a wharf and tried to claim a bit of money back from it
and um we've just had the permission to have a look at this skew bridge which is i've seen some
skew bridges in our time but goodness me that's definitely that's that's something else and
also we've been lucky enough to be joined again by dave and tony if i jog forward a few yards
we're not going to call them dave and tony we're going to call them the oracle and the encyclopedia
because they're just full of information it's wonderful and it makes journeys like this so
much more enjoyable when there's a wealth of information this bit is interesting because yeah
when when they were working on the canal in um the 90s um there's just a bit of canal down there but
the check who owns it actually took out this extra bit to make a turning point winding hole of course
yes so that he could do little trips between the main road and here oh brilliant yeah so one of the
fastest things that we read up before we arrived was um again stephen ballard uh trying to raise
more funds as he was building the second phase and apparently he caught the train to birmingham
and commented on what a comfortable easy ride that was and you just wonder how much i always wonder
this how much at that time you know sort of 18 20s 30s and 40s what an amazing time that would
have been to sort of be alive and see the change in the transport which revolutionized everything
once again from the canals to the railways and and how much that sort of occurred in there you know
our final stop for today was just to the east of monk hide and the site of an old
mill another mystery played out before us as the setup here to date in our eyes is unique but
right now we're looking at um again the economy i almost thought that was a tunnel um but that's
another what they call an accommodation bridge see this is one of those places that we would
never have found if we hadn't talked to you guys so right behind us uh there you can't really see
much because obviously the trees the photos was an old mill monk hide what's it called monk hide was
and they fed the water to that in a very different way because of the coming of the canal
um i'm not going to attempt to describe it before we will leave that to dave shortly
or paul in edit mode firstly we found this online this is a planned view of the canal
now north being at the top of the screen what does this look
like now on the ground well over to dave who is also pointing north
so what we're looking at there dave what we are for me to me this is the canal basin so we're
on the top side yeah on the south side and then just over the nettles there you can see an exit
yep and that's the exit of water that was brought from the
laden to feed the canal yeah the canal then fed the meal now that is rare if not unique
it's it's fascinating to see the engineering they had to do on the spot if you will to try
and accommodate what was already here and in this case of the mill that was just there and
they took river up uh river they took water from the river a loddon further north 150 yards north
down a culvert which is just down here into the canal the canal then fed the mill which i think is
um potentially unique but it's above us now there is this leet so i assume we have to travel uphill
to be able to take water out of the laden but we'll find out in a moment so this map looks like
it still shows the old elite and if we follow it up to the north for quite some time through this
woodland and orchid well then we come to the site of its probable entry point at least according to
those maps because here is a sluice gate now that would indicate at least in part a tunnel from this
point because the land does go about three or four meters above us behind us in the orchid
at the time though we couldn't find an entry point so i think once again it's a bit of
a vegetation clear here and it may unravel the entry point for that tunnel or leaked or culvert
so back towards the mill and you can see some of the embankment on the way for this elite
and how it obviously there at this point carried the water south from the river loddon now after
a dig around on the north side of the canal here guess what we found well yep a beautiful section
of the culvert which led straight into the canal as you can see it doesn't look in too bad a shape
and maybe even purposely backfilled here not 100 sure we'd love to spend some more time here with
the team uncovering some of the canals old secrets and maybe removing a whole bunch of
vegetation here which would probably reveal a lot more but at this point it's 7 p.m in the evening
right dave and tony have given us so much information to be going on with
um how i'm going to put this video together i have no idea but we'll see what comes out
um a huge thanks to the um heritage and gloucestershire canal trust and in particular
uh ginny tony and dave who have made the day so much more enjoyable than what it would have
been with all the info we found so make sure you you click on the link and if you're local
or localist and you want to be involved with a project of helping them restore this canal you
should definitely do that because oh there's a lot going on there's a lot of mysteries to solve and
there's a lot of work to be done so do join them by clicking on the link in the description below
um and from rebecca and i will see you next sunday 5pm on the channel and can i say thank
you very much for both of you to come to this lovely part of therapy it's been a pleasure
you