Origins of the Waterway Recovery Group
Introduction
The canals that Waterway Recovery Group’s
volunteers are busy rescuing as havens of rural tranquility were once
the transport arteries of the World’s first Industrial Revolution.
For sixty years from the late 18th century
onwards, Britain’s canal system expanded to link the country’s
rivers, ports, cities and industrial heartlands. Canal boats supplied
the new factories with raw materials and carried away their finished
products.
Then, with the beginning of the Railway Age, the
days of roaring prosperity for the waterways were quickly replaced by a
continuous decline of fortunes. The majority of available finance was
withdrawn to build railways and the purchase of a third of the canals by
these same railway companies led to a bitter fight for survival.
Those canals that survived the onslaught did so by
cutting their tolls to the minimum; this meant there was no money left
to enlarge or improve the waterways, and they fell further behind the
railways.
By the Twentieth Century the decline was
accelerating: some waterways were abandoned and have disappeared, now
only to be traced by ancient maps. Others, ignored or sometimes
deliberately sabotaged by various authorities who had been entrusted
with their care, lingered on in a sort of twilight existence, mouldering
gently, carrying only a small percentage of the traffic they carried in
their great days. Largely unimproved since the 1830s, the waterways
seemed to have little hope of serving the nation’s transport needs.
But in the 1940s and 50s, just as the canals
looked set to become a part of history, a few visionaries realised that
they had a future - for pleasure boating and as a fascinating piece of
industrial archaeology that had survived unmodernised for over a
century.
Soon the pleasure boating boom got under way. This
has been increasing ever since, and many canals are busier than they
ever were before, some verging on overcrowded!
Restoring some of the canals that had fallen
derelict would ease this overcrowding; use of volunteer labour meant it
could be done at an affordable cost.
But there is more to canal restoration than simply
providing more water space for boaters: many other users such as anglers
and towpath walkers will benefit; parts of Britain’s industrial
heritage that would probably have vanished for ever have been restored
to working order and are being used for their original purpose; former
industrial areas that have suffered years of decline can benefit from
the regeneration that a restored canal and its users will bring.
Restoration
The concept of voluntary work on the inland
waterways was born in the early 1960s and has steadily grown. From the
early days when very few volunteers worked on projects such as the Peak
Forest and Ashton Canals near Manchester, the River Avon in
Worcestershire and the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal in Warwickshire, the
position has changed out of all recognition.
Hundreds of miles of canal have been saved from
dereliction and are enjoyed by thousands of people. And hundreds more
miles are gradually being brought back to life, thanks to over 50
voluntary groups spread all over the country, with a combined workforce
of thousands.
From the Forth & Clyde Canal in Scotland to
the Chichester Canal in the South, the Bude Canal in Cornwall to the
Stowmarket Navigation in Suffolk, voluntary working parties are run by
local canal societies, branches of the Inland Waterways Association and
regional WRG Groups. Some work regularly on a project in their area;
some work as a mobile task force, travelling long distances to boost
local efforts where their help is most needed.
One thing is sure. Only by utilising this pool of
‘free’ labour will these lost routes ever be restored, for time
after time it has been shown that using volunteers, restoration costs
can be cut to a fraction of those incurred by ‘conventional’
methods.
Today’s canal restoration projects often involve
construction work that is beyond the scope of the volunteer - replacing
a demolished main road or railway bridge for example - and canal
societies call upon Local Authorities or National Lottery funds to pay
for it to be done professionally. But in every single case where this
has happened, it has been the volunteer work elsewhere on the same canal
that has shown the people with the big money that the canal was worth
restoring.
To be really effective, the volunteers would
benefit from having some kind of national organisation. That is where
the Waterway Recovery Group comes in...
WRG
In 1970 the Waterway Recovery Group was formed by
enthusiasts who had been active in voluntary restoration work since the
mid 1960s. Their aim was to be a co-ordinating force, not centred upon
any individual project but backing up and assisting local groups on any
worthwhile project. They could help to overcome problems of organisation
and communication, supply and loan vehicles and items of machinery, and
advise on methods and technique.
Since
then, considerable knowledge of restoration methods and a large pool of
plant and equipment has been amassed. At present, the group has a fleet
of vans, several excavators and a bewildering variety of smaller items
of plant, including dumpers, pumps, mixers, winches and other sundry
equipment.
All of this is freely available on an ‘expenses
paid’ basis and drivers/operators can be found too. WRG can also help
with the supply of labour and training in the use of machinery.
WRG has co-ordinated groups of volunteers visiting
important sites, such as the Ashton and Peak Forest Canals, the
Droitwich and the Basingstoke Canals and more recently the Montgomery
Canal, resulting in a constant flow of labour and ensuring smooth
operations.
Perhaps the most spectacular early episodes were
the Big Digs. Undertaken as demonstrations of the staggering
effectiveness of well co-ordinated voluntary labour, dramatic
improvements were made to long derelict stretches of canal. Twice in the
Manchester area and again in Dudley, Woking, Welshpool and Droitwich,
WRG organised mass working parties with work forces of hundreds.
In October 1991, the Big Dig was revived -over
1000 people reclaimed over two miles of the Wilts & Berks canal at
Wantage in the biggest single weekend working party held so far. And
since then, they have become a regular annual event, with ‘Reunion
weekends’ every autumn helping to boost a different project every
year.
Major projects
WRG’s largest project to date has been the
complete rebuilding of the four Frankton locks and the three Aston locks
on the Montgomery Canal, which branches off the popular Llangollen canal
to pass through over 30 miles of spectacular Welsh Border scenery.
Closed by its then owners the LMS railway
following a burst bank in 1936, the canal soon fell into dereliction.
Its locks decayed, it was blocked in many places when road bridges were
demolished and its future was threatened by plans to use part of its
route for a bypass.
Thanks to protests, the bypass scheme was
abandoned, WRG and other volunteers spearheaded the restoration efforts,
local authorities who had been responsible for some of the blockages
have contributed towards removing them, and the canal is well on the way
to completion.
In addition to the work on the locks, during 1993
and 1994 a four-acre wetlands nature reserve was also constructed on the
Aston site. Built entirely by volunteers at a cost of just over
£100,000, there was a saving on contract prices of over £200,000! WRG
had long been a leading voice in the campaign for restoration of the
canal and, financed by its parent organisation the Inland Waterways
Association and a Department of the Environment grant of £37,500, WRG
undertook these works, as a way of providing an alternative habitat for
the wildlife that has flourished in the derelict canal, but might suffer
when the boats return.
WRG Groups
Most voluntary work must obviously be done at
weekends, and between them WRG’s six regional groups ensure that
almost every weekend there will be volunteers hard at work somewhere.
However the exceptions to this rule are the Canal Camps, first organised
in the early 1970s for a few weeks in mid-summer, which have now
expanded into a flourishing annual programme.
Canal Camps
Currently, we organise 20 or so weeks of Canal
Camps each year, mostly in summer but taking in holidays the whole year
round - see elsewhere on this website for full details. The camps offer
the opportunity to achieve a vast amount of work in a short time; it is
not unusual for a camp to achieve in a week or two what might take the
best of local societies many months of weekend work parties.
Camps are held the length and breadth of the
country from long established restorations such as the Droitwich Canals,
the Wey & Arun Canal and the ‘Cotswold Canals’ (The Thames &
Severn and Stroudwater Canals) to such new projects as the Ipswich and
Stowmarket Navigation, the Lichfield Canal and the Hereford &
Gloucester Canal. Some camps also help out at the IWA’s National
Waterway Festivals, providing much of the back-up and site organisation
for events which attracts tens of thousands of visitors in one weekend.
Canal Camps attract a wide range of people, from
young volunteers taking part in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme
to waterway enthusiasts who wish to make a contribution to restoring and
preserving the system which gives them so much enjoyment.
Canal Campers must be aged between 17 and 70 for
insurance reasons, but apart from that age doesn’t matter, nor does
previous experience. Although everyone is treated the same, no-one is
asked to work beyond their capabilities and any necessary skills will be
taught. A Canal Camp is a worthwhile week in the open air with 20 or so
like minded people, with lots of hard work, fun and an enjoyable social
life.
The work of the modern canal restoration
volunteers is just as varied as the volunteers are. It may be ‘traditional’
work - bricklaying and stonework for example - or it may involve more
modern construction techniques such as steel piling, concreting or new
‘environmentally friendly’ bank-protection methods.
And it may involve the use of machinery -
excavators, dumpers, cranes and so on - or it may involve nothing more
sophisticated than a shovel or a trowel.
Although it must be appreciated that there are
limitations to what these unpaid workers can do, most canal restoration
work is well suited to this pool of free labour. Today, it is often the
volunteer, raising his own funds or paying her own expenses who leads
where others will later follow. Government training schemes,
partnerships with local authorities, European regeneration funds and the
proceeds of the National Lottery, coupled with the greater awareness of
the importance of the environment, have brought much-needed money and
support into canal restoration. It is fair to say, however, that none of
these schemes would have begun without pressure from volunteers, and
volunteers still contribute expertise and labour to most of them.
Today, legislation on safety, construction, VAT
etc. - coupled with the increasing complexity of the jobs tackled as
work has progressed from the ‘easy’ restoration projects to the ones
that were written-off as ‘impossible’ in the early days - have
combined to change beyond recognition or recall the world into which WRG
was born.
But Waterway Recovery Group has evolved throughout
its existence and will continue to provide powerful leadership in the
sphere of waterways restoration.
Inland Waterways Association
In the early 1980s, Waterway Recovery Group was
established as a limited company and became a subsidiary of the Inland
Waterways Association - the national campaigning body for British
canals. Since then the IWA has given considerable financial assistance
to WRG, enabling its range of activities to be increased. In return, as
well as providing physical support for IWA's campaigning aims in working
to restore the canals, WRG also assists IWA directly, for example by
helping to organise and run major waterways festivals.
Navvies
By 1966, the need for co-ordination and greater
co-operation was already apparent. "Navvies Notebook" magazine
- which takes its name from the original "Navigators" who
laboured to build the waterways - was the first attempt to fill this
need.
By listing dates and details of volunteer work
parties throughout the country, the ‘new navvies’ of the canal
restoration movement could keep in touch with each other and with what
was happening on the canals.
Since those early days, the journal has changed
little: the title has been abbreviated, format and layout improved, but
the aim has remained firm - to be a unifying influence, to inform,
advise, guide, entertain, amuse and provoke. In short, to campaign and
lead the restoration movement - on occasions into conflict with the
"powers that be" when they tried to move against the system’s
best interests! Please see the
"Navvies" link on the left for subscription details.
So.....
There is plenty of work to be done; please come
and help us restore some of our neglected waterways.