Posted on May 18th 2021

East end maintenance Monday 17 May

Maintenance

Phase 2

East end maintenance Monday 17 May

by: Stuart H.

This week the team met up at Cerney Wick lock and round house, ready for another day removing fallen tresses from the canal bed between here and Latton basin.

First stop was a fallen ash that has been down for a couple of years, this means that the wood has seasoned nicely and it’s a bit lighter to handle.

*The fallen ash is a bit like an iceberg, the bulk of it is hiding in the water*

The wood recovered today was loaded into the van to take back to the depot for cutting into logs. The log sale income is all ploughed back into supporting the canal restoration. Anyone who would like to purchase seasoned logs can do so by visiting the website at https://www.cotswoldcanals.org.uk/support-us/log-sales/

*Tree sectioned and loaded ready to go back to the log depot*

This tree was one that had blown over, it’s about 73 years old (rough ring count), the trunk had split above ground, possibly the result of ash dieback the average lifespan for ash is approximately 150 years.

*Looks to have seeded around 1948, not that old for an ash tree*

The stone walls along this stretch have seen better days, and this encourages the public to use the stone for bridging the low points in the towing path during the winter. Chris spent a bit of time recovering the stone and stacking it on the wall. Rebuilding the miles of walls would be a long a costly process, a step to far the team.

*Not the most elegant dry stone wall, but the stone has been salvaged*

Next stop was a bit further east to recover this branch.

This time the logs were stacked for recovery on another day.

*Just a log pile, not a high rise bug hotel*

Last one was another submerged branch, but recovery is worth it as it’s more for the log sales.

*Another partly concealed branch to come out*

There’s another tree along here that may not have long left standing, it has all the signs of decay including a spectacular bracket fungus, probably Polyporus Squamosus or ‘Dryad’s Saddle’ (a fungi expert could not be found to confirm this). Dryad’s is caused by white rot, the other possible candidate being Beefsteak Fungus (Fistulina Hepatica) a brown rot indicator, but it’s a bit early in the year for that.

The flag irises are just starting to appear, the canal bed should be riot of yellow soon, but it’s the bluebells that are most prominent now.

Luckily, it was all fun in the sun today, but only just; there were some threatening clouds skirting around that would be giving somewhere a good drenching.