Working Party Blog 2022

A busy time; 27 square metres of basin floor poured and around four cubic metres of infill cast against the new south wall of the Narrows.

Taking a well-earned rest (in the shade) after concreting in temperatures of over 25 degrees, (L to R), John C, Hugh, Adrian, Roger and John M.   Photos: Mike Babb

Pound 25
The work in Pound 25 has been digging out the old backfill material down to a stable base below canal depth and then to import stable material up to concrete depth and compact it. A visqueen membrane is then laid with rebar mesh above before concreting takes place. The imported material is actually the sand/sandstone which has been excavated from the new and deeper section of canal narrows further up. This means that we can use some of the spoil material that we are digging out (see section below) and don’t have to purchase it.

Concreting has been hampered by either rain in May, giving way to higher high temperatures more recently in June. We have however made good progress and only have the last few sections of basin floor to do now before we reach the old invert level - the old lower gate of former lock 24.

 Bill Beresford finishes of the top brickwork

Tamworth Road Narrows
The North wall has reached an inspection chamber for the ‘big pipe’ and so hasn’t progressed any further in the last two months. However, Bill has finished off the top two courses of the former lock chamber on the old lock north wall and so we can start to fully complete sections of wall and move steadily westwards towards Cricket Lane. 

The work here over the last two months has mainly been taking place on the South wall. We had students from South Staffordshire College attend one Tuesday in late May and do some bricklaying for us. As well as progressing with the wall though we needed to start reducing the level of the path that we installed after it crosses the old bywash. A lot of material has to be stripped in order to reduce the level for the new canal depth. Eventually both towpath and the current path will merge.

The good thing has been that once we strip the top surface of soil we initially reach sand and then a much harder sandstone and this is the material that we use as part of the sub-base for the basin floor in pound 25. We are having to resort to using the claw attachment to dig out the final 300mm or so.

Roger has also been progressing with the blue brick soldier courses in order that we can complete further sections of the south wall.

 The green team and DofE volunteers were busy too. They were finding the route for the canal at Muckley Common and clearing the jungle-proportion over growth so that the big mower can then keep it clear. 
A second group worked on a different part of the common to try and find the posts which mark the canal route. After much hacking, the girls found one as Annie points out, and just on knocking off time too!
 Photos: Chris Bull. 26 th June

We had a team from IMI Precision spend the day with us, helping clear the land at Muckley Common, which had become overgrown. 22nd June

The towpath by old lock 24 has been moved over to the south, to make more room for the canal to come through. The team has also started to lower the path, as the canal will be low along this stretch to get under Cricket Lane. Photo: Christine Howles.20th june