We had a very productive weekend of volunteering on the Uttoxeter Canal at the end of November, with volunteers from Waterway Recovery Group North West joining us to spend a couple of days working around Carrington's Lock and Bridge 70.  The WRG volunteers had travelled from across the country for the event, and spent the weekend staying at Greatwood Hall in Tean.  We also had a team from Canal & River Trust join us on the Saturday, to install a bench. 

The bench, in the style of a lockgate, had been made by Canal & River Trust volunteers beforehand, and with permission from the landowners South Staffs Water, we installed it adjacent to what would have been the canal towpath (and seems in fact to still be the route of the public footpath if you look closely at an OS map), on the other side of Carringtons Lock from the current tarmacked roadway. 

Volunteers not working on the bench carried out vegetation clearance – mostly brambles – along the route of the former towpath on the far side of the lock.  Two of the CRT volunteers did a great job of clearing the path through the middle of the core stones on the Saturday.  On the Sunday some folk did more vegetation clearance around Carringtons Lock, leaving it looking a lot less overgrown by the end of the weekend, while another team worked around Bridge 70, weeding the bridge and the steps.  We also made a start on weeding the path from there to the milepost, which has become very overgrown (not surprising given that it’s now 9 years since we built the path as part of the Churnet Valley Living Landscape Partnership Bridge 70 project.

If anyone would like to get involved in future work parties in this area, please let Alison know by emailing alison.smedley@cuct.org.uk.