David: A day out at Napton
I SPENT Saturday morning, in the rain, touring CaRT's open day at Napton Locks. It has two jobs on there, replacing the top gate and the bottom cill of the bottom lock and fixing the major problem which arose at lock 10 back in the Spring.
The bottom lock was empty and occupied by an elaborate staircase to allow access to the bottom of the chamber. The top gate was already done and they were part way through the cill replacement and refurbishment of the bottom gates, which will be fit for another 15 years as a result. This should cure the problem of the lock pound dropping overnight, to the alarm of those using the official moorings in the pound.
The work on lock 10 was made necessary by the collapse of the bywash culvert, which caused the offside retaining wall below the lock to move in. CaRT did a pretty good job back in April fitting a temporary solution, which limited the emergency stoppage on these very busy locks to only five days. The workers are now making a permanent repair, which has involved demolishing much of the wall down to its foundations below water level, which were found to be sound—not bad for 200 year old brick work.
The wall will be rebuilt in concrete, faced with brick and the piling which is now being installed as shuttering (see pictures) will not be visible once the water is back. The offending culvert will be lined in a modern material and CCTV inspections are being carried out on similar locks. They are so keen to make sure the work is finished on schedule that they were working on both Saturday and Sunday.
While the pound is empty it is possible to see just how badly silted it is (see pictures) and I asked the very well informed engineer who gave me all this information whether they would be using the opportunity to clear it. He said probably not, partly because it isn't budgeted for, but also because the piling behind the silt is badly corroded and if the silt was removed it might well collapse. There would also be the problem of disposing of the silt, unless the farmer could be persuaded to take it.
Another benefit of the canal being drained is that you can see what's lying on the bottom. This is not an urban canal, so the usual nasties which end up in skips on canal clearance days were not in evidence. However, in the pound between the bottom lock and the bridge, a distance of about 30 yards, I counted no fewer than 15 pipe fenders, many complete with ropes.
We use these ourselves and they do get knocked off, usually at locks. Clearly lots of other people have the same problem; if there were that many fenders below one lock, how many are carpeting the canal bed all told? I have been told by a CaRT man that another problem they cause is to fall onto the cill of locks in such a way as to prevent the gates closing properly. I can see no simple solution to this, unless the makers of the fenders (they were mostly of the type sold by Tradline at Braunston) can somehow arrange for them to float.
I was prevented by the security fencing and a six foot drop to the mud from making any attempt to retrieve the fenders and the alloy windlass which was also there, but I would have thought that there was a good fundraising opportunity here for CaRT. Get a couple of volunteers to collect the fenders under appropriate safety arrangements and sell them off—they cost at least £10 each and alloy windlasses are £25. Done whenever a section is drained it might even raise more money than the Friends scheme.
Post Office Stores
Although we moor our boat at Napton, through being out cruising I haven't actually visited the Post Office Stores in the village, about ten minutes walk from the Folly moorings, this year. I was delighted to find that it has been completely refurbished and reorganised by new owners and is now even better stocked than it was before. I hope boaters will make use of it as village shops are a vanishing breed, like village pubs, and need all the support they can get—very much a case of 'use them or lose them', just like the canals themselves.
David Hymers