Still some skilled craftsmen at Canal & River Trust

IT APPEARS that there are some skilled tradesmen in the Canal & River Trust organisation reports Mike Stone.

As you may know the Grantham Canal Society (GCS) volunteers have dismantled and rebuilt Lock 15 in the Woolsthorpe Flight. CRT have manufactured new gates at Stanley Ferry and its staff are installing them. To maintain heritage features new wooden quoins have been fitted—most locks have brick or stone ones—which required some modification to the brickwork by GCS chaps. This is what GCS guys thought of the CRT chaps efforts:

Top of their game

“The delay has been caused by the need to shave the brickwork behind quoins as the retained brickwork of the original wall wasn’t plumb! I have to say the C&RT chippies - Stu, Ben, Josh—were superb and they really did try bloody hard to get the gates to fit at the first attempt but were thwarted by the brickwork. It’s fascinating to watch these particular guys at work, they are at the top of their game….unlike some of their counterparts in that organisation!”

The bottom gates are being temporarily held in place whilst the GCS guys do the grouting behind the quoins. Once the grout has gone off, the gates will be lifted out so that the quoins can be bolted to the wall. The gates will then be lifted back in, secured to the gate anchors, then it will be the turn of the balance beams to be placed on the gates.