Engineering works on the Canal Lock

The Canal and Rivers trust are carrying out their winter engineering programme and are currently working on the Shropshire Union canal at Ellesmere port. The work is to drain the canal lock and replace the lock gates. This section of the Shropshire Union Canal was built in 1797 at the height of the canal building frenzy in Britain. It was Thomas Telfords last large civil engineering project. The Shropshire Union canal or the Shroppie as its affectionately known ends at this northern section and boats can gain access to the Manchester Ship canal. Previously to the Manchester Ship canal being built the canal basin sent boats directly to the River Mersey Estuary and onwards to Liverpool and Birkenhead and also out into the Irish sea. This is a canal history video as after we look at the canal lock we go into the national waterways museum. Amongst the many interesting exhibits in the boat museum we also see an original starvationer boat. The starvationer boats were very common in the mines at Worsley on the Bridgewater canal. This is a video about British canal waterways. The Canal and Rivers trust and Canal History in the UK. We also see how the new lock gates look and they are made of Oak. A great family video about canal conservation.

Canal locks who doesn’t love a canal lock and who doesn’t love a walk by the canal or a cycle by the canal locks are ingenious things and they they go right back obviously to the late 1700s but what are they like when they’re drained and that’s what we’re going to show you

Today when these locks are completely drained and there’s no water in Them hello my name is Martin welcome back to another video I’m here in a drained Canal lock we’re on the Shure Union canal and the canal and rivers trust have drained this lock to replace the lock Gates so we’re going to have a good mooch round I’m going to be telling you

All about the work that they’re doing and looking in depth at this now drained lock and it’s massive so the canal and River trust skill teams and volunteers protect the canals all year round but winter some incredible Feats of engineering tech place and they’ve given us the chance today to go behind the

Scenes and learn more about how they repair and care for the canals so this week we’re at elme Port in fact we’re at the top end the Northern end of the shopsite Union canal and we’re going to take a look at this uh Canal Basin here

Used to be a very busy industrial place you’ll also see in the Basin it also has the national waterways Museum so we might just have a quick peek at that and see what it has to offer so I was asking what they may have found while they

Drained the this part of the lock and apparently the most interesting thing is a few mobile phones and bit off boats now just to give you a bit of context here just picture sort of helps uh Shop Union Canal comes in there at the top of the picture goes through two

Locks and then it goes down into a basin the lock that’s been drained is the one there between the two x’s and that’s where we we are that’s what we’re looking at just so you can see an overview of what what we’re doing today you’ll notice there the museum as well

And in a bit I’ll give you a very quick tase of what you can expect to see in that museum okay so a bit of wind on this clip so we’ll voice it over I was asking where the paddles are because you have to winch up the paddles to uh let

The water flow from one section of the lock into another to either raise or lower the water level uh so I apparently they’re behind the lock Gates here so I’m going to stick me camp in there now and I’m going to show you the Paddles now obviously when you drain a canal or a canal lock you have to be mindful of the residence that live down here of course I’m talking about fish and I was told by the canal and rivers trust volunteers that they had to rescue and replace further up up the canal up

To 30 eels that were living in this canal lock that would have been fascinating to see and I would have loved to have seen like you know just how big they grow down here in the uh the murky darkness of the canal lock So the reason for draining the canal lock and doing all this work is so that they can replace the locked gates up at the top end here these Gates were built in the uh the Truss own workshops um custom built for this lock obviously uh

I asked what they were made of cuz I’m always interested in what wood they use uh apparently the oak uh a few of the parts there the metal parts that go into making a um a lock gate and of course the net there that is uh they used for

Catching all those heels and all the time obviously you can hear the pumps running and that’s cuz there’s a constant flow of water from uh the canal further further Upstream for a one of a better word that’s constantly flowing down and uh just trickling in so they

Need to constantly maintain the pumps to keep the lock dry now despite the fact that the base of the locks the bottom of the locks are full of mud and everything you know you think my God how deep is that mud it’s years old the bottom of the locks is actually

Brick as you can see here so it’s almost like a bit of a bowl when you get to a canal lock um I just love the fact that you can see this old uh Georgian brick work here to think that this brick work dates from 1793 and it’s as good as any modern

Brick World okay cakes in mud but it’s still brilliant to be honest with you I’m actually looking for Mason’s marks on the uh the uh the stones but I can’t see any at the moment it’s quite deep and quite scary to think when this is full of water how just how deep it

Really is so this work is ongoing throughout winter and I’m filming this in January so if you would like the chance as well to also take a look at what they’re doing on the various projects around the country if you head to the canal and rivers Trust website

You can pick and event and you can go and see what they do as well now like I said at the start of the video who doesn’t love a canal whether you’re walking running riding or sailing we all love the canals uh don’t forget the canal Rivers trust that look after our

Canals our a charity there is a section on the web page where you can make a donation so if you want to drop them a couple of quid feel free to do that and I’ll leave a link pin in the first comment as well for you just on the

Banks of the man ship canal James what have you got for us so I’ve got a finest cup of tea the selection of teas um we’ve got some and the selection of biscuits excited than very much you’re excited of course the man you all love is never happy he’s not happy with his

Biscuit that he’s got not happy with your Brew are you what have you got what do you think of the lock really good good at it be good to stand in stand like in the actual lock itself as for usual we want to go more more than what we’re allowed really

Which is well it’s all safety you know what I mean it’s got to be safe but we wanted to just go wed in the lock so as you can see this is the Manchester ship canal over to the left of that bank that you’re looking at now is the Mery

The river Mery Esty here’s our little um Canal Basin in context for you as it’s as it is today you can see there the Manchester ship canal on the left of the screen now this was a very industrial uh Hub at one time this top part of the

Shops Union Canal which is Otherwise Known affectionately as the shroy this top part was built in 179 7 obviously during the canal building frenzy um Thomas telford’s last big civil engineering project apparently but I had to ask the question if we sat next to the Manchester ship canal dated around

1894 and the shroy is dated 1797 surely at one point the shroppie FED directly into the Mery hm I just had to ask that question so let’s go and find a volunteer and this particular volunteer is called Mike and he’s going to shed some light on this subject for us am I

Right Mike you’re absolutely right spot on and if you look carefully you might not be able to see along the top of the roof line there’s a little um the top of the lighthouse and that Lighthouse was there to enable boats and barges coming off the Mery to find this little

Entrance into the into the into the canal so they could bring their goods and trans ship here in this Canal town so what we’re looking at now that predates the maner Ship Canal absolutely the maner Ship Canal is really a new right if you don’t mind just give me

A minute on the maps with you there’s our Basin there Shops Union Canal comes this way and it ends here at el port and there’s our Basin that is the Manchester ship canal right I want to pull out here and just show you um this area here is

Called stanow Banks and and it looks like they’re probably uh mud Banks sand banks which are probably dangerous to shipping um you can see the navigable navigable bits here but there’s the Ship Canal anyway ship canal starts there down at easn blcks uh and I took you there on a

Previous video when we did a little sailing trip down the manester Ship Canal but we’re talking about the days before the Ship Canal was built so let’s click to the old Maps there you go the old Maps before the Manchester ship canal existed uh and there’s our Lighthouse that I’ve shown you the

Little lighthous uh there’s the Sho it and there’s the very lock that we’ve been in it had its own gas works as well uh the uh the the Basin and its own Gas Works and you can see some of the old gas pipes still uh around from those days

You’d be forgiven for thinking that was the Ship Canal but if we pull out like I say this map predates ship canal there’s Stan law Banks and it’s just that what you’re looking at is just looks like like a bit of a navigable bit of the stanow banks um very interesting and

They’ve exploited they built the base in there to probably exploit that and be able to send ships up there or boats up there over to uh to Liverpool and out into the Irish sea let’s come back down here but I think the Ship Canal exploits that navigable bit as well

Um because imagine having to dredge these for the ship canal and if you look up here it kind of ends there but then it’s Ren navigable there and this is uh I think East is around there the East locks area is around there but there you

Go I just thought I’d show you that and and it was interesting the way the shroppie did actually uh enter the um the Mery estery and I it and exploited that navigable bit there and then later on possibly the Ship Canal uh exploited that navigable bit as well up here um

Could be wrong but that’s what it looks like to me but uh there you go there’s elme port and our Basin and there you can see it entered straight into the river Mery estery see that building there that’s the offices of the Manchester ship canal or it was the

Offices of the Manchester ship canal quite nice right so back to the canal Basin and I’m just going to quickly show you some of the buildings and what is briefly inside the museum some of my favorite things but I spy a chimney and I spy what looks like a boiler house

Mike what’s that about this is really an example of how this canal Port actually kept up with modern efficient ways of handling cargo and in the 1880s 1890s uh Armstrong of the of the famous WG Armstrong uh built hydraulic power to power cranes we had Hydra hdic high

Pressure water so that the steam engines in the building on the right were powered by two Lancer boilers on the left and that’s the chimney uh for the for the boilers behind so we’ve come across this High Press water before because Manchester had a system that fed around the city center beautiful chimney

Uh as you can see there and apparently there was uh the boilers um pressurized the mechanism that was inside this accumulated Tower and then the weight sat on top of the water kept it under pressure and fed it around the sight um and it opened lock Gates and it powered

Cranes and all sorts of things and lifting mechanisms and I just love that beautiful wooden uh accumulat Tower there so this part of the museum when you come upstairs this was a grain Warehouse down below the boats unloaded and the the the grain was brought up

Here we’re just going to show you the these doors here how they would have loaded through them doors there those would have opened and you would have got the boats down there unloading and raising the grain up so finally I knew it was here but um I forgot it was here

We’ve actually got a starvation so all the videos were done about the berry Bolton Canal about W Earth cury we’ve even found one at one point and an abandoned one they’ve actually gotten a starvation here the old slim boat that used to go in the mines at Worley and

It’s uh quite complete and you can see how it actually used to be so there you go that’s the starvation of there coming out of the mines at Worley and these were ubiquitous these things around the canals um around Manchester the berry bolon Canal the Worley canals this was

The start of containerization because they loaded boxes in they filled the boxes we called the loaded boxes into the starvation and obviously they floated it down the canals but then to see one here at the uh The Boat Museum was absolutely wonderful to be able to

Find the look up one touch it and walk around it and and look at how they actually were so a very bit of an iconic moment for me this looking at this starvation um and this would have had one hell of a history on the canals

Carrying coal see that boat there at the back you know what that was gford 1926 oil tanker can you believe horra oil tanker so mate we’ve got an interesting boat there to your right can you tell us about that yeah that is a really interesting boat it’s a 1912 tunnel tug

All Boats were towed by horses difficult to go through tunnels so tugs like this towed perhaps half a dozen loaded boats each with say 30 tons through a through a very narrow tunnel this is from the Wester and Birmingham Canal but it’s been here at the museum for getting on

For 50 years wow so incredibly this is from the Ship Canal when they were building it this is the diving equipment from the guys that went down to maintain and build the locks that is unbelievable look at that like it this is some kind of a

Bellows what you wound to to send air through to the uh the divers unbelievable I love that diving stuff proper old school diving stuff that was it brilliant uh quite a bit of ship canal stuff here in the waterways Museum so if you find yourself near elme Port get

Yourself down there check check the place out some absolutely loves lovely stuff here and some real um gems amongst everything else you can look at love these lamps here brilliant so there you go the national waterways Museum and there was lots of um exhibits outside full boats outside as well that you can

Go and take a look at right so there you go the shops at Union canal and uh we’re going to say goodbye to you here on the banks of the Manchester ship canal with the Mery over there in the background do you like it James yeah it was all

Right Gary y Bob on Bob on anyway thanks very much for watching take care and we’ll see you in the next video by for now a bit but there’s something down here that I’ve heard of I’m hoping it exists and if it does it’s a proper gem a new One that was a difficult journey and it’s here we found it it’s there