Newsletter No. 5

RGT NEWS

ISSUE 5

DECEMBER 2010

EDITORIAL It is incredible that it is time for another edition of our Newsletter; seems like only yesterday that we were compiling the last one. Time flies by at an increas-ingly fast speed. A number of our members will be aware that over the recent period our Chair-man of only some eighteen months, Gordon Paton has contracted the horrible Motor Neurone Disease which is accelerating quite considerably. This means that he is unable to continue in his current post, but has agreed to become our first Vice-President. We would like to take this opportunity to express our thanks to Gordon for his involvement and enthusiastic support. The committee would like to extend our very best wishes to him and his family at this difficult time. By good fortune, we have found a new Chairman (Designate) ,Brian Annis, and welcome him to the Trust—we look forward to working with him—his CV is reproduced below—another case of ‗ask a busy man!

LJT

OUR NEW CHAIRMAN (DESIGNATE)

Brian was born in Ipswich, the only son of Jack and Gladys Annis. His father was an engineer and a director of Cocksedge and Company. Brian attended Northgate Grammar school, leaving in 1952 to complete a years practical farm-ing on a mixed farm in Stradbroke. During his term of National Service in the Royal Air Force he served as an airframe fitter at RAF Kabrit in the Canal Zone and at RAF Nicosia in Cyprus. On leaving the Air Force he studied for his Na-tional Diploma in Agriculture at Writtle Agricultural College near Chelms-ford .On leaving college in 1957 he was employed as assistant Farm Manager on the Bawdsey Estate of Sir Raymond Quilter, farming the 2500 acres of Sut-ton Hall Farms. The Estate was broken up following the death of Sir Raymond and in 1960 Brian went to work for Needham Chalks Limited. He retired in the year 2000 having completed 40 years with the company and been responsible as Production Director for agricultural and industrial chalk products from five quarries in East Anglia. He represented Needham Chalks on trade federation matters and was chairman of the Agricultural Lime Producers for many years. For his work in this field of agriculture he was awarded an OBE

in 1982. He continues to work in this area of agriculture, being retained as a consultant by the Agricultural Lime Association and is the UK representative on the European Committee responsible for the harmonisa-tion of the specifications of agricultural lime fertilisers. Brian is a Rotarian, a member of the Stowmarket Club and has just completed his second term as President. He sings with the local church choir and has been a member of Woodbridge Choral Society for over 50 years. He has been a Needham Market Town Councilor since 1972 and is the Chairman of the local Com-munity Centre. In 1962 he married Jean who he first met when he went to work at Stradbroke. They have lived in Needham Market for over 45 years, and they have 2 daughters and 5 grandchildren.

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REPORT FROM MINUTE SECRETARY The summer months have been busy and productive for the Trust Amongst the events attended, in which the profile of the Trust was raised was the SOS Raft Race at Needham Lakes in July, when the new display boards were in evidence. An award from IWA resulted in the presentation of a cheque for £1000, and this was received by Spencer at the IWA Festival. A more detailed report of this event can be found elsewhere in this magazine, as well as seeing a video ( brilliantly recorded by Spencer‘s grand-son of the actual event) on the RGT website . Another donation worthy of note came from the Ipswich Society for the cleaning of the graffiti from the Ipswich waterfront sculpture ―The Naviga-tor‖. The Trust has been in conversation with staff members of Suf-folk One High School regarding their offer of student volunteers for the lock restoration projects; and is awaiting further commu-nications from them. The Trust AGM enjoyed a memorable talk by Stewart Grim-wade on the subject of the Ipswich Maritime Trust. In the interest of gathering information for a leaflet as to the state of the river tow path, members walked the footpath in September. No report can be complete without mentioning the worthy retirement of the RGT Restoration Manager Colin Turner, and the subsequent IWA award made at the IWA AGM at Market Drayton, (see photo-graphs and report). Colin handed over to Martin Bird on the 30th June and he has a hard act to follow as the new restoration manager. His report is to be found else where in this magazine. The Trust has met six times and work in progress will be found in the Martin‘s report.

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COLIN TURNER CO-WINS THE CHRISTOPHER POWER AWARD

The Christopher Power Fund was created by a donation to The IWA in 1983 by Mr and Mrs Power in memory of their son Christo-pher, who died at the early age of 29 in April 1981. Christopher had a passionate interest in canals and narrowboats, especially those powered by steam. He was a member of the Kennet and Avon and Wey and Arun Canal Trusts and was founder member of the Solent and Arun Branch of the IWA.The Fund provides an annual prize to the Person, Society or Trust which, in the opinion of the judges, has made the most significant contribution to the restoration of an amenity waterway. The Prize is not given every year but in 2010 IWA has made two Awards.

CITATION

Colin has been the most instrumental figure in progressing the restoration of the Ipswich and Stowmarket Navigation, holding the title of Restoration Manager since 1999. He is a long-standing member of the IWA Ipswich branch, and founding member of The River Gipping Trust - the organisation devoted to the restoration and re-opening of the Ipswich and Stowmar-ket Navigation. Under his leadership, the restoration of two

locks has been successfully completed, including the complex Baylham Lock, a Grade II listed structure. He has project managed and site-managed the work with very little in the way of external funding or labour, but with all the hurdles and pit-falls a construction pro-ject is subject to. He has held negotiations with local councils, English Heritage, the Envi-ronment Agency, wildlife bodies and riparian owners. He has organised WRG canal camps, put in planning applications, argued with officialdom and spent a huge number of hours just being on site, contributing to everything from partnership building, to technical design, to actual donkey work. This would be a tough task for anyone, but now at the astonishing age of 84, Colin continues to be a huge inspiration for all who are lucky enough to work with him.

Clive Henderson -

Clive Henderson—2nd left Colin Turner & Terry O‘Brien (centre) Audrey Smith (extreme right)

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Completed East wall Baylham Lock

You may have seen several reports recently following the news that Olympic

medal winner Andy Holmes was seriously ill with Weil's disease.

Sadly Andy passed away and it is believed the disease was the factor behind

his death.

Weil's disease or Leptospirosis is contracted through contact with water carry-ing urine from infected animals (especially rats and cattle). As well as being notorious amongst water-sports participants, it has also been known to affect canal users (more information in this ROSPA article). Handling ropes etc. that have come into contact with infected water, especially if one has recent cuts or wounds could place someone at increased risk.

We would encourage all users of our waterways networks to be ever vigilant against this nasty disease and if in doubt, to seek medical advice with the ut-most urgency

WEIL'S DISEASE - A WARNING TO WATERWAYS USERS

WORKING PARTY DATES AT

BAYLHAM LOCK - 09.00 -17.00

Wednesday 15th December Wednesday 5th January

Wednesday 12th January Wednesday 19th January

Wednesday 26th January Wednesday 2nd February

Saturday 5th February Wednesday 9th February

Wednesday 16th February Wednesday 23rd February

Wednesday 2nd March Saturday 5th March

Wednesday 9th March Wednesday 16th March

Wednesday 16th March Wednesday 23rd March

Wednesday 30th March Saturday 2nd April

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FROM THE TREASURER’S PC Since the end of our last financial year (31

st March 2010) we‘ve had

income of £2573 and we‘ve spent £3433. That means that our funds in our various bank accounts have gone down to by £860 to £7358. I‘ll try and put some meat on the bare bones of those figures. On the in-come side we received a donation of £1000 from the Inland Waterways Association. We benefited because the IWA National Festival was held at St Ives a couple of years ago and some of the profits from the Festival are donated to local canal trusts. Gift Aid produced another £220 with membership income contributing £420. Scrap metal prices continue to rise and we got £462 from that source. Bank interest rates remain at an all time low; our deposit account was only paying ½% so we have opened a new account with Scottish Widows which at least pays 1.75% on our deposit of £5500. Expenditure on restoration work is significantly less than last year as the heavy work at Baylham Lock is now complete. We actually spent £2850 in the last 6 months but £1000 of that figure was spent on new scaffolding and clips – that was the £1000 we received from IWA. In order to complete the restoration work at Baylham we had to hire a couple of dumpers and an excavator (for a week for £830) so we could restore the work site to the way it was before we started the restoration of the lock. That involved bring-ing all the top soil back from the heap at the bottom of the site and taking all the brick and concrete rubble to be re-cycled by Few‘s of Blakenham. The trustees are currently discussing our next project but we don‘t yet have any estimated costs so we needn‘t go out looking for more funding just yet.

SPENCER GREYSTRONG

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DROITWICH CANALS Sunday 11th April at 6.10am saw Spencer and I leaving Colchester on our way to Stoke Prior to represent The Gipping Trust at the 2010 Spring Meeting of the Southern Canals Association. The meeting was held at The Boat and Railway Pub along side the Worcester & Birmingham Canal. As has become customary at these meetings the morning was given over to visits to local restora-tion projects, in this case the Droitwich canals. The Droitwich Canals have attracted consider-able funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, as they are considered to be of heritage value, be-

cause they consist of two canals that represent the beginning and the end of the age of canal mania in Britain. The Barge Canal was opened in 1771 to Severn Trow dimensions to enable the export of salt from Droitwich via the River Sev-ern. The Droitwich Junction canal was opened in 1854 to connect the Worcester & Birmingham Canal at Hanbury to Droitwich, this was built to narrow boat dimensions, and at the same time the Barge Canal locks were lengthened. As with many restorations this has been a project that has been going for many years, I worked on the third of the flight of three locks that takes the canal down from Hanbury Junction some 12 years ago, on a WRG training weekend when we were scaffolding the lock, but the restoration had been started in 1973. The restoration of the three locks were fairly straight forward with most of the work being done by volunteers. The locks are very deep and close together so to reduce the chance of the short pounds

between them becoming shallow due to lock operation they each have side ponds. These ponds were silted up and full of weeds so re-quired clearing out. Our visit to the Junction canal started in a car park built on the original line of the canal below the last of the three locks. One of the major problems facing the restorers was the section below the third lock of the flight; the channel was silted up and had become an extensive reed bed that was inhabited by great

crested newts and reed warblers. Since naviga-tion ceased a rugby club had been established near by and their access road crossed the line of the canal on the level. The canal was so close to the road that there was no room for the ramps that would be required for an over bridge and a swing bridge would not be acceptable, as when it was open, traffic would be queuing on the road. The proposed solution was to divert the canal to use the channel of the river Salwarpe that ran between the canal and the rugby club but there was an area on the proposed diversion line that was inhabited by slow worms. Before any work could begin on the diversion an extensive new reed bed had to be created and the great crested newts relocated, the reed war-blers had to find their own way to the new loca-tion! It was considered a success when in the first year after the old reed bed was destroyed there was a count of 40% nesting in the new bed. As the new bed is larger than the original it is expected that even more birds will eventually make the reed bed their nesting site.

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A new habitat had to be built for the slow worms off the line of the diver-sion; it was then possible to build a fixed over bridge away from the road for the rugby club and excavate a channel for the canal beneath it. Between the rugby club bridge and where the canal passes under the M5 motorway, there is a two lock stair-case and a single lock, both built of concrete. It was intended to brick face them but funds ran out The culvert under the M5 is very narrow as it was originally built to take the river but when extensive road modifications were being carried out the Highways Agency were persuaded to raise the roof of the culvert to navigable height. Having taken the river‘s course for the canal, they have created a new course for the river alongside the canal and a very good job they have made of it. Although only about a year old it already looks very natural; it joins the canal below the single lock, just before the point where the canal passes under the M5 so that they both canal and river use the culvert. Having walked this replacement section of canal in the company of Jason Leach BW Regeneration Manager for the Droitwich and Montgomery ca-nals, we then made our way to the far end of the barge canal and walked the section between the A449 crossing and the river Seven. The A449 dual carriage way posed a big problem to the restorers. They had to close one carriage

way while a cut and cover tunnel was built under it, they then had to reinstate that carriage way and close the other while the remainder of the tunnel was built. The whole thing took 10 months and no doubt a large slice of the available funds. The next lock down from the A449 needed extensive repair as trees growing out of the structure had caused damage to the brickwork. The last/first lock, the entrance lock from the Seven, caused many problems. While there was no navigation the owners of the house beside the lock took the opportunity to extend their garden to the other side of the lock and fence so that after twelve years it was legally theirs. That seems to have been resolved but there is still an access issue for boaters who will have to moor to pontoons on the

Seven and come ashore to operate the lock. We were told that this was near to being resolved. After an excellent carvery lunch and a couple of beers the afternoon session was taken up by a slide show of the history the Droitwich canals restoration and a presentation by Roy Sutton of the results of the Rescom survey of the current state of restoration schemes nation wide.

COLIN TURNER.

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WHERE IS IT—WHAT IS IT

By John Atkin 2003 Cast Iron River path, near Ipswich Railway Station John Atkin was commissioned to make this sculpture for Ipswich, alongside the River Orwell, by Ipswich River Action Group. It was inspired by Ipswich's maritime history and industrial past and influences were drawn from a variety of sources, from nineteenth century stern castings for ships and navigational in-struments, to pattern templates and the 'wheels' of industry.

The sculpture was constructed in corten steel, a material that is synonymous with the area's past industrial use. It stands 16ft high alongside the river and adjacent to a cycle path, watching, guarding - a sentinel to a new era. The Navigator alludes to Ipswich's maritime history but is also a navigator for the future.

John Atkin was born in 1959 and first

studied at Leicester Polytechnic. During his year out (between Leicester and the Royal College of Art) he was invited to visit Henry Moore at his studios in Much Hadham. Moore had seen examples of Atkin's student work and wanted to fi-nancially assist him with postgraduate study. Moore went on to kindly fund At-kin's postgraduate at the RCA, London, as well as supporting working visits to Ed Kienholz's studio in Berlin.Atkin's first major exhibition took place in 1989 at the Museum of Modern Art in Mel-bourne. He has gone on to receive awards from the British Council and Australian Councils and has had work shown at Sculpture at Goodward, The Kouros Gallery in New York and The Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice. He continues to exhibit worldwide and has a studio in London

At the request of the Ipswich Society, Colin Turner and Trevor Chatting ‘cleaned-up’ this sculpture earlier in this year and RGT received a hand-some donation for so doing

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RESTORATION REPORT 15

NOVEMBER 2010 Much progress has been achieved dur-ing the summer months. Following the work on re-building the east wall and re-profiling the earth bank behind the wall in July, the rest of the summer has been spent in re-bedding the coping stones on the East wall and in work on the upstream cill at Baylham Lock The coping stones are now fully in place, including the creation of a cut out to allow for a ladder and the casting of an area of concrete to bring the upper surface of one stone to a level. Work then moved to re-building lost brickwork form the upper cilll and re-moving a rotten wooden member from the gate sub-frame. After considera-tion, it was decided not to replace the timber at this stage, but leave this until we are ready to fit gates, to ensure that any timber can be permanently sub-merged. Having completed the brickwork to this position we have now moved to concen-trate in the area below the bridge where trees had been cleared earlier in the year and exposed a brick surface which may have been a wharf area for the mill. The retaining wall at the rear of this area was in poor condition. Loose brickwork has been removed, reducing the height of the wall by 18 inches, the bricks re-tained on site pending rebuild. We are currently cleaning these bricks and pre-

paring for the rebuild of the wall. We have prepared to pump out the area below the lower stop planks to expose the damaged brickwork in the training wall below the bridge, but high water levels have so far prevented us from carrying out this operation. While a number of volunteers were away on the Chairman‘s cruise, we took the opportunity for a smaller group to replace the broken bench at Hawks Mill with a new timber version.

Planning is underway for a winter work programme to include re-visiting Bos-mere and some minor work at Pipps Ford. However the Countryside War-den for Bosmere is unable to gain ac-cess to a chipper until later in the year and the Environment agency have con-firmed they require a full application to cover the works at Pipps Ford. An appli-cation is in hand for this. I have also written to the owners of Badley lock, to offer the Trusts services in carrying out a survey and subsequent restoration work, but to date have not had a reply.

MARTIN BIRD

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RESTORATION

The working parties held on Wednesday and first Satur-day of every month have made signifi-cant progress at Baylham Lock through this summer period. Our major area of work has been the completion of the East wall, with coping stones in place and ladder recess formed with only some pointing remaining to complete this side of the lock. We have also taken advantage of the lower water levels at

the end of September/October to take out damaged brickwork from the upstream cill and to rebuild this area and the cill apron. This included the removal of the remains of a beam forming part of the timber subframe for the old lock gates. The completed East wall looks tremendous and has been a real success. We have now moved to working below the bridge where clearing scrub from the retaining wall exposed more damaged brickwork and a longer length of wall than had been previously obvious. The removed bricks have been retained on site and are now being cleaned ready for the re-build of the wall. Our next job will be to pump out below the lower stop planks and investigate damage to the training wall below the bridge, but this is dependent on water levels. Away from the lock, one working party session was spent removing the damaged seat at Hawks Nill Bridge and replacing it with a new bench dedicated to Doug Tomlinson. Over the winter we hope to carry out clearance and repair work at Bosmere and Pipps Ford, and dates for this work will be confirmed once the necessary approvals have been obtained.

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What do Restoration Groups need to do

•Consider how your waterway would be operated and maintained once a section is

ready to be opened to general boating.

•Would there be enough in the ‗Dowry‘ (remember that‘s not just money) to interest

the New Waterway Charity? How much would that be and what else could it consist of?

•If the decision is to go to self operation there needs to be a form of legal framework

in place to enable you to do so and to collect tolls; and possibly to enable other methods of revenue generation. What form this should take needs care-ful investigation and consideration.

•Seek if your M&A‘s and charitable status actually allow you to generate funds and operate a waterway . If not consider getting them changed to reflect what you want to do when its most convenient.

•Look and respond to all planning applications alongside your waterway. In your

responses try and seek financial betterment (Section 106 Planning Gain) for your project from those who will benefit financially (i.e. property values) from a restored canal alongside. Ideally this should supply a form maintenance fund-ing for that stretch of waterway (e.g. Over Basin – Hereford and Gloucester) which brings benefit to the development, preferably on a regular basis.

•Learn from others who are already running a waterway

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Month Possible Work * Equipment Needed ** Comments

January Removing natural debris from the water, such as ‗islands‘ that have built up and accumulations of silt and debris.

Shovel, spade, trowel Best time to carry out any major work, such as de-silting Clear only the centre of the water-course, leaving the sides intact

February

March Bird breeding and fish spawning season

April Planting in front of PPG and ICI fencing to screen indus-trial buildings.

Spade, trowel

May Removing Indian Balsam. Skip, spade

June

July Painting of the railings at Station Road Bridge.

Paint and paint brushes

High risk period for channel works, due to de-oxygenation August Clearing rubble from river

bed. Skip, wheelbarrow

September

October November December

Cutting weeds, maintaining bank side vegetation and hedges, controlling over-hanging growth and carry-ing out any coppicing. If appropriate, use this to create brash piles and put in place to build up the river bank.

Strimmer, trowel, prun-ing saw, shears

Dormant time for most wild-life Vegetation should be cut to 2m high Work on berry-bearing fruit should be left until Decem-ber

2011 PICKEREL PROJECT WORKS CALENDAR

*Litter picking will continue to be done every month, along side any other activities ** At every clear-up or project day gloves, waders and bin bags are needed.

Working Parties are held on Sundays:

9th January 6th February 6th March 3rd April 1st May 5th June

3rd July 7th August 4th September 2nd October 6th November 4th December

TAIL NOTES Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed the absence of a list of future Presentation Talks in

this issue. We are still carrying them out but at a reduced scale since we are running out of a clubs,etc to contact. Any possible societies would be most welcome. A very success-ful evening was held recently with the East Suffolk National Trust when Spencer pre-sented the long version in a most expert manner to an audience of well over 100. We do have two dates for 2011—Wednesday, 9th February when Lewis will speak to the Ipswich Society at Museum Street Chapel and Friday, 25th March with Spencer talking to the Ips-wich In-Between Club at Castle Hill URC, Dryden Road Ipswich

Spencer has recently been appointed as official IWA Representative to the River Stour Trust

Editor: Lewis J. Tyler. Church Cottage, Capel St. Mary, Ipswich, IP9 2EL (01473) 310381 [email protected]

Views that may be expressed in this Newsletter are not necessarily the views of the River Gipping Trust or its Trustees