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Waterway Recovery Group Volunteers Return To The Montgomery Canal For Four Work Camps Between 7 August and 3 September 2011

Volunteers of the Waterway Recovery Group will be returning again to the Montgomery Canal to continue the next stage of restoration with four weekly work camps starting on 6 August.

The volunteers will be working between bridges 84 and 85, to restore the canal to Crickheath Wharf, a length they cleared last year.

The Waterway Recovery Group first worked on the Montgomery Canal when restoration started in Welshpool 1969. Then they helped with the restoration of the Prince of Wales’ length north of Welshpool, and at Frankton locks and at Aston locks and nature reserve; more recently they have been working at Crickheath.

Though the Group has many years’ experience and works on canal restorations all over the country, they are volunteers and any design they use has to be fairly straightforward, and – as they have to raise their own funds – they want to do the work at the lowest possible cost consistent with a thorough job. They would too like the solution to be as ecologically friendly as possible, including trying to minimise the ‘transport miles’ for materials: the canal was originally built from local materials and, as far as they can, the volunteers want to do the same today.

This year and next the Waterway Recovery Group volunteers will be working to make the canal watertight. This is not easy as the ground is very peaty and tends to move up and down with the seasons, so the volunteers will be laying flexible watertight liner. There will not necessarily be a ‘logical’ progression from north to south, but instead the volunteers may select a couple of the most difficult sections and work on them first. Then, when they are sure that these work properly, they will do the easier parts!

The volunteers will be keen to retain the original appearance of the canal. Part of the charm of the Montgomery is its rural appearance, with shallow sides sloping to a deeper section in the middle, with soft banks lined with vegetation offering a good habitat for wildlife. If the volunteers have to use modern techniques such as steel piles, they do not want them to be visible, so the piles may be buried within the canal banks.

Montgomery Waterway Restoration Trust chairman Michael Limbrey said, “We are pleased that the Waterway Recovery Group is coming back to the Montgomery Canal this year. The volunteers of Waterway Recovery Group and Shropshire Union Canal Society have achieved a huge amount in the restoration over many years and, in these times when funding is difficult, their work to continue restoration is especially important.

The canal from Maesbury to the B4396 at Redwith Bridge has already been restored and filled with water. However, as canal boats are long and cannot turn in the canal, they need special wide points to turn in called winding holes, and the next suitable turning point is at Crickheath Wharf. For the last three years the Shropshire Union Canal Society have been working on the section from Redwith Bridge to Price’s Bridge, and now Waterway Recovery Group will be starting to waterproof the next section to Crickheath.

“Volunteers have become very skilled at restoring canals: you need only look at the range of skills being used every month by the Shropshire Union Canal Society volunteers to see this. This section is more challenging than most of the canal which has been restored to date, with the exception of the four miles south of Frankton locks. There are areas where the towpath has sunk very low and where the far bank has almost disappeared. There is water in the canal bed in winter and it is dry in summer, a sure sign of leakage. Indeed, we believe that this section from Price’s Bridge all the way to the border at Llanymynech has leaked ever since it was built, so restoration here is going to present unique problems.

"There are other canals which have similar difficult sections, and this work will be a trial to develop methods which will not only be useful here, but will in effect write the manual for restorations all over the country.

“WRG volunteers come from all over the country and pay their own expenses to spend a week’s working holiday to restore our canal. We hope that people will walk down the towpath to see what is going on. The volunteers will be pleased to stop and chat to visitors about what they are doing – and they will be grateful for encouragement!

“When this length of the canal is reopened, there will be just three miles to finish the restoration to Llanymynech. The restored canal will bring many benefits to the area, for visitors and residents, for years to come, and we shall be very grateful to these volunteers for all they have done.

“It will be very exciting to see another length of this canal come to life!”