Restoration Round-Up
by Colin Greenall

SCARS volunteers have been very active so far this year with a work party out each month.

Our first outing of the year was in January when we cleared the towpath between Newton Brook and Alder Lane Bridge, in Burtonwood. Although this is a section of the canal that has been filled in, the coping stones of the canal wall are still visible for a considerable distance. Work commenced in bright early morning sunshine and good progress was maintained as vegetation was cut back to expose the copings. Soon after midday the rain came but we soldiered on until mid afternoon when the rain became too heavy to work in.

During February, March and April we have been at work uncovering the foundations of the lock keepers cottage at Newton Common Lock, in Earlestown. The cottage was demolished in the early nineteen seventies, prior to the filling in of the canal in that area. Future plans for the lock area include interpretation of features such as the cottage and its garden, as well as the lock itself, so we needed to locate its position and reveal its remains.

Our February visit proved to be a bit of a failure, mainly because we were looking in the wrong place, i.e. too close to the lock side. On our second visit in March we were successful, and about a third of the foundations were uncovered. In April we completed the excavation of all the outside walls of the cottage.

It has been very interesting working on this site, local residents have come along to see what we were doing and have been eager to share their reminiscences with us and even lend us photographs to copy. If anyone out there has any old photographs of the cottage at Newton Common and would be kind enough to let us copy them, the Society would be very grateful.

In March an extra work party was organised to clear rubbish from the canal outside the World of Glass, the Hilton Hotel and Safeways Supermarket in St Helens town centre.

The day started well with dry sunny weather and plenty of volunteers who eagerly set to with grappling hooks. Soon after dinner the heavens opened and down came the rain but no one stopped until the whole length of the canal from Safeway to the railway bridge had been cleared. The rubbish removed was the usual assortment of old bikes, prams, tyres, oh and supermarket trolleys, seventy of them! About half of the trolleys belonged to Safeway and were returned to their store, the other half of them went into two skips which had been provided by the World of Glass and the Hilton Hotel.

Well that's it for now, many thanks to everyone who turned out and got wet.

If anyone would like to join in the fun on future Work Parties, don't hesitate to contact me: Colin Greenall, Tel: 01744 731746 (evenings) 01744 732031 (daytime).

Index for this issue     Index of all Canal Cuttings issues      Home Page

Site design and content © 2002 - 2009 Sankey Canal Restoration Society
Site design by Phil D.Long