A quintessentially rural canal, the 33 mile long Grantham traverses three shire counties

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BITM Work Camp - 9th & 10th Dec 2006 - Knipton Feeder

The 2006 Bonfire Bash was successful but it was such a big project that not all of it was completed in the weekend so Bit In The Middle Group (BITM) of the Waterway Recovery Group (WRG) came for the weekend to do some more. The farmer at the site had been promised, several years ago, a bridge over the feeder culvert so he could drive his tractor across the field. This had never been done so we, as a thank you, promised him a bridge. As most of the wood had been used on the bash more had been delivered along with two lengths of corrugated piping.

We hired an excavator and a brand new Yanmar one was delivered. It was certainly state of the art with a sophisticated alarm system but as we were in a valley and surrounded by iron ore the phone link to turn off the immobiliser wouldn’t connect so the driver had to drive the lorry up the hill until he could obtain a signal. That having been done it was unloaded and Colin grabbed a length of piping and drove it across the field. When we initially did a site survey last May the farmer said access in winter was very soft and muddy. He wasn’t wrong you could hardly walk in places it was so slippery.

As the photos show we cleared the top off the exposed culvert, cleared all the silt and bricks and inserted the new length of piping. Further back upstream where the feeder runs, along the edge of a bank, a tree had fallen over, many years ago, and taken the feeder bank with it so two pipes had been inserted and a concrete and piling entrance had been made. This join between piling and concrete had failed causing a lot of water to escape and run down to the river below. A load of clay had been delivered and several of the group, after clearing out all the leaves and mud, puddled the area and the leak was sealed. Several other people got down into the feeder and raked and shovelled out all the debris.

I had been on nights all week so couldn’t meet up on the Friday night but I went straight from work and had breakfast with them before setting off to site. As soon as we arrived at site Leigh and I went off to Woolsthorpe and brought back two bags of washed sand two of builder’s sand and a bag of cement. We should have used mortar, which would have been made from washed, and builders sand plus lime but the mortar would take a while to dry and harden, water had to flow through the feeder the next day which would have washed out the mortar so cement was used to ensure it cured. It was only the difference between lime and cement, which should be alright. (For those of you not familiar with cement and mortar, cement cures and goes hard whereas mortar merely dries out and remains flexible. In fact the mortar that was laid 200 years ago on the bricks, which were taken out, could have been pounded and would be have been capable of being reused but as the original culvert would have lain drying for several months before being put into service carrying the water we would have water through it straight away). As the pipe was buoyant bricks had to be piled along it’s length to weigh it down as the bricks proper were being laid.

The main group worked like Trojans (can you say that today? Or are they a minority group? If so I am sorry to all Trojans but they still worked like you) and managed to reach King’s Wood fence along one side of the feeder. If the other side needs doing then more wood will be required and we will gladly go back at a later date. The outer limits of the new culvert bridge were marked out with inserted posts and we will build portals at each end another day. After it has all dried we will cover it all with hardcore and finish the new bridge.

Enjoy the gallery of photos and just think you could be doing the other side of the feeder with us in the near future.

Thanks, as always, to Dave Wedd and Rachael Banyard who travel many miles to come and work with us, to Leigh for sorting out the paperwork, also to the background and catering crew for another job well done and to Colin, who like me now, is nothing to do with the GCRS committee.

P.S. The porridge was great.

Martin Day.