Dock Lock the final chapter (sort of)
by: Andy P.
We reached a point where we wanted to empty the lock so the Godwin pump was put into place. However the pound was still too high and the mini dam just could not cope, so we abandoned that plan.
Still there was lots of pointing to do so everyone got stuck in.
The stop planks were installed with the help of the digger crew and the tarpaulin and king post fitted along with the support wires.
The digger crew then got stuck in to taking the ramp out as they needed the material elsewhere. It did not take them long.
Unfortunately a large volume of water was released upstream which flowed down the canal and flooded the lock and over ran the stop planks. It looks nice though.
We still don’t know if we can get a 70 foot boat into the lock as the headwall had been repaired to its original shape. Other locks have had the headwall cut back to accommodate the larger boats.
The offside lower quadrant wall has been rebuilt and repaired by the SDC crew over a number of months. The coping stones were on a slope above the stop plank channels, so a carefully crafted small platform was constructed.
We had thought through several ways to make the old lock ladder recess boat safe. In the end shuttering and concrete was voted the favourite.
Several loads of topsoil were diggered over and the ground filled and levelled on both sides of the lock as well as the neighbours garden.
Over time the top layers of scaffold were stripped out but the bottom layers in the lock had to wait until we had some working pumps. Then we could wade around in the canal bottom. Challenging.
All the fencing has been removed and the mooring bollards installed, towpath modified and stop plank storage completed. Great work by several groups.
The access bridge remains, which will be used when the lock gates arrive. Therefore, there are still a few big jobs left to do including the quadrants for the gate beams.
A big thank you to all the construction team members, SDC volunteers and WRG groups, for completing our 4th lock refurbishment along with all the support from the depot crews and digger crew.
