Building site play permitted!

For two days only, the canal restoration works were open to the public at Capel's mill, where the canal bed has had to be re-laid through the remains of a council 'tip' that was created in the eighties. The canal and the river Frome run close to each other, and the A419 was built over the original canal in the eighties, when it was believed the canal would never be revived. The new bed goes under the arches of the railway viaduct, which carries trains on the Cheltenham-London line. It is, as you can imagine, a massive project, and CleanSteve has written more technical information on his blip of yesterday.

I was delighted to have this historic opportunity to walk the new bed of the canal before the water goes in for good. I blipped some murky water back here, but this has since been pumped out, otherwise we'd have been swimming. Not being an engineer, I don't understand exactly what is going on, but I was delighted to ask, and be told, that from the end of May, it should be possible to walk along the improved towpath from Bowbridge, near where we live, to Wallbridge, on the edge of town. Work is going to start on restoring Bowbridge lock, but before that starts, the actual bridge has to be replaced or altered because it has a massive concrete infill on one side, through which no boats could ever hope to pass. This probably happened in the eighties, too...In any case, no price has been agreed on the bridge works, so there is likely to be a hiatus, during which it will be possible for me to walk/jog to work alongside the moorhens and dog walkers. Some sections of the canal along this route remain weedchoked, and idle, but the tendering for clearing and fixing-up has begun.

Blip that cover more than one subject interest me. This fits my 'play' category (there isn't a group for this, but as a playworker, etc...) and also, er, landscape! Can't call it 'nature' right yet, as it looks very unnatural, and let's face it, concrete engineering works look hideous, not very architectural at all. Mostly it looked like a load ( and I mean a Load of people wandering around a muddy, clayey, site, chatting to stewards and volunteers in hi-vis jackets. Hard to convey the excitement, so I've gone for children at play. They are playing pretty much as they'd play anywhere, making use of available resources. The phone-shot is about an audio trail that has been created on site. You can scan the QR code on a leaflet with a smartphone, and hear stories of the canal. At least, you can if you have a smartphone!

More canal restoration blips here:
Clean Steve's take on it
and here:

More from me
Capel's mill with viaduct (all blown out!)
men at work here
keep out of here
get out your spray paint here
take a footbath here
and watch your head here
Archived images of engineering work here



Thanks for all the comments, stars and hearts for my 300th. I think I got higher on the second spotlight page than ever before, The test is to get there when it's not a blipday. I did manage that, once.