Another lock for Chesterfield Canal
WORK has started on Staveley Town Lock on the Chesterfield Canal, with two week-long work camps.
It is the Waterway Recovery Group camps of around 18 people that are helping the Chesterfield Canal Trust to build a new lock at Staveley.
They are building the front walls of the new lock, and the Chesterfield Canal Trust's volunteer work party will build the rest.
Two new locks
The new lock, that will be numbered 5A, is needed to enable the waterway to get under a railway line a few hundred metres further on, and then there will be a twin lock, Railway Lock, that will be numbered 5B on the other side of the railway line to raise the canal again. The two sections will be joined by a pipe to siphon the water from one section to the other. The above picture shows the Waterway Recovery Group volunteers.
The base pad for the lock has been paid for through grants from Lafarge and the Inland Waterways Association. It was built as part of the new Staveley Town Basin and has been overseen by engineers from Derbyshire County Council and the Chesterfield Canal Partnership.
Watered in Autumn
Work on the basin is progressing ahead of schedule. Meanwhile the Trust's work party is completing a washwall from Mill Green to the Basin.
The Trust's work party is in the distance in the picture whilst some of the Waterway Recovery Group are in the foreground. When this is done, the canal bed will be dug out and the whole section will be filled with water sometime during the Autumn. This will give an extra kilometre of canal.
The whole project has aroused enormous interest in Staveley, many of whose citizens remember it as a muddy ditch. They are delighted by the prospect of having canal boats moored on their doorstep. The Chesterfield Canal Trust is planning to hold a Canal Festival on the site next summer.
Grateful
The Trust is very grateful to Staveley Town Council for allowing the volunteers to stay in the Stables accommodation at Staveley Hall.
However there is still much work to be done. Supporters can help by donating bricks towards the cost of the lock. To donate a brick costs £5, a hod-full of bricks is £50 and a barrow-load of bricks is £100. For further details write to The Treasurer, Chesterfield Canal Trust, 47 Whitecotes Park, Walton, Chesterfield, S40 3RT. All donors are listed in the Trust's award-winning magazine Cuckoo, unless requested otherwise.
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