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| Volume 5, Number 11 - Summer 2005 | |
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Restoration Round-up By Colin Greenall2005 looks as though it will be another interesting year, with work planned for "Barmere" and the discovery of the boathouse at Winwick, plus an opportunity to do a survey of the Winwick Maintenance Yard buildings. Sunday 16th January: Winwick Dry Dock During our dinner break Dave Smallshaw discovered traces of the boathouse, hidden in the undergrowth alongside the path opposite the Maintenance yard. More later... Sunday 6th February: Winwick Dry Dock & Boathouse Once more to Winwick Dry Dock, to finish of the clearance work left over from last month, and to make a start on the newly-discovered boathouse site. The majority of us finished cleaning out the dry dock, while Roy Forshaw and two new volunteers, Ruth McDonald and Peter Lafferty, made a start on the boathouse. It wasn't long before Roy came to report what they had found - a sluice in the ditch, and the outline of the building, puddle clay around the foundation, the boathouse! When we had completed the clearance of the dock and had our dinner break, the rest of us joined Roy and Co. and helped to establish the size of the building. (See article, below) Before we finished the site was surveyed and recorded, then the trenches where filled in and the hole in the ditch was covered with a large thick sheet of plywood supplied by Gordon's Sheds, the rest of the site was cleared and made safe before we left. Sunday 27th February: Canal clean up at The World of Glass
Sunday 13th March: The Boathouse, Winwick Having established that the foundations are of the boathouse it was decided that more clearance work should take place and that the hole in the ditch should be investigated. The weather was cold and the sun was shining when we began work, the hole in the culvert (ditch) was completely opened out. This revealed what we believe to have been an inspection hole for the sluice (see pics below); it was partially covered with planks (thin railway sleepers, two had the holes for the rail chairs in them).
Rubbish was cleaned from the culvert to release the build up of water, then the hole was measured and recorded, the planks were put back and covered with the large thick sheet of plywood and covered with earth. Meanwhile clearance of the building area had revealed a concrete floor just below the surface of the infill and evidence of another wall on top of this solid floor suggesting that another later building had stood here too. We have been told that a building on this site was used has a paint store, which could explain the burned pitch-like substance found in the drain pipe mentioned earlier. The Boathouse
The unanswered question is what kind of craft was put in this boathouse? Has anyone any ideas? If you have any information about this building or the boat that lived in it please let me know. If anyone would like to join in the fun, contact Colin Greenall: Tel 01744 731746 (evenings) 01744 732031 (daytime) or by e-mail at Colin.Greenall@btopenworld.com. Index for this issue Index of all Canal Cuttings issues Home Page Site design and content © 2002 - 2009 Sankey Canal Restoration Society |
Back at Winwick Dry Dock to continue the clean up we started last November. On our last visit we had cleared all the vegetation from the north sidewall, so we now turned our attention to the south wall. (Left: Roy Forshaw hard at work) By dinnertime this was almost clear, only a small section to be finished off later. After lunch we started to clear the floor of the dock and move the waste to where it could be loaded into buckets and hauled up out of the dock, emptied into a wheelbarrow and taken to the tipping area off site. By mid afternoon the weather was beginning to change, so we called it a day, leaving a small area for the next visit.
It was cold and dull when we began our annual clean up at the World of Glass, but we soon warmed up, throwing grappling hooks into the canal and pulling out all kinds of rubbish. (Right: Peter Keen on the railway embankment) It's amazing how a few people pulling out shopping trolleys can generate a crowd... who show a lot of interest but don't offer to help. Our work here over the last few years is achieving something - our catch of trolleys is getting less each year (only 30 this time) Even so we managed to fill two skips, kindly supplied by The World of Glass, with an assortment of rubbish: a bike, scooter, pushchair, gas fire, tyres, traffic cones and general litter, we even caught a live fish in one of the trolleys, but we put that back in the canal.
The brickwork that remains (six rows, hand made) is on a sandstone plinth that appears to be surrounded by puddle clay; there is a sluice gate in another sandstone wall in the ditch at the rear. The width is 14ft outside, 12ft inside by approximately 29ft long (the canal end is under the path. We surmise that the solidified pitch in the drainpipe in the rear wall (left) suggest that there may have been a fire when the building was being used as a paint store.