Inglesham
Inglesham
by: Jon P.
The weekend of 1/2 February saw the volunteers from Kent & East Sussex Canal Restoration Group (better known as KESCRG) accommodated in the refurbished Kempsford Village Hall (which is 22 miles closer to Inglesham than Brimscombe Port!). Work scheduled by Jon P was the clearance of the last 80m of scrub along the towpath bank of the 400m of canal owned by CCT. We had to approach along both banks, as the canal had up to 500mm of water flooded in from the River Thames.
We managed to get the CCT mini digger across to the towpath side for the first time, where it was used to remove tree stumps, grade the surface, and pull back some collapsed canal bank. Meanwhile, the main team were lopping through Blackthorn and Brambles, heading for the end of CCT owned land. The Blackthorn, when cut, leaves annoying little stubs that trip up any unsuspecting volunteer. This gave us the opportunity to trial our new purchase – a Tree Popper. This grabs the stub between two jaws and the whole tool is levered downwards, pivoting on a curved baseplate and pulling out the stump and roots. Very effective! We also trialled some Mk1 versions of home made equivalents – these may need some more work, but are much cheaper.
At the end of two days, we’d cleared another 30m of canal, made 350m of towpath useable, and felled several trees blocking the path or canal. At one point, we had to make it clear to a shooting party on adjacent land that Pheasants don’t wear hi-viz or light bonfires – this had added to the weekend’s excitement! We’re getting closer to a canal length we can be proud of and hope to show it off at a joint Open Day on 9/10 May together with Weymoor Bridge (more on this to follow).
