Restoration Dredging the canal

.     Clearing the water channel of thousands of tons of accumulated silt, several feet deep, has been a major undertaking. In Surrey, where access to the canal by road is easier, the County Council used mechanical excavators to dredge the channel. Hymac excavator below Deepcut Lock 17     In Hampshire, however, access to the canal through rural areas posed a more difficult problem. Hampshire County Council cleared the 6-mile length between Ash Lock and Pondtail Bridge, Fleet, using land-based excavators.

"Perseverance" below Poulters Bridge, Crookham The Canal Society tackled the 15-mile and less accessible western end using a 70ft steam powered floating dredger aptly named "Perseverance". Work began at Odiham in Hampshire in 1975. Although an ideal method of dredging, there remained the problem of silt disposal.     At first, dredgings were loaded into skips run along a towpath railway and emptied onto riparian fields, but this method was slow and laborious. Silt skips on towpath railway     Later, the silt was moved with mud barges and tugs (left), and off-loaded by a bankside crane (below).     Dragline crane at Crookham silt dump.     In two areas the canal bed was lined with clay. This was done on the mile long Ash Embankment in 1980-82 using a narrow gauge railway run by the Canal Society. In Sheerwater another mile was lined with clay in 1989-90. There were many delays during the years of dredging, caused by maintenace stoppages, unexpected breakdowns, annual boiler inspections etc. The most protracted delay occurred at the Dogmersfield slip when work was stopped for over a year while the slip was cleared and a gabion retaining wall built. Eventually the dredger passed by the site in April 1983.     In September 1985 the crew celebrated the dredger's 50th anniversary. The event proved so successful that another "open day" was held in October 1986 when the dredger reached Poulters Bridge.     Perseverance finally reached Fleet in March 1990. The stripped down hull just managing to clear Reading Road Bridge (the lowest bridge on the canal) with less than an inch to spare...     In March 1993 Perseverance reached Pondtail Bridge, east of Fleet, and in October of that year, its work on the canal finished, it was taken by road to the Canal Museum at Ellesmere Port in Cheshire. The museum's intention is to restore it to its original condition when it was built in 1934 and then use it for demonstation steamings in and around the Boat Museum complex. Progress on the restoration has been much slower than was envisaged, due to pressure of other work and restorations of other craft at the Museum, but some work has been carried out. Perseverance is not only a unique piece of our industrial heritage, but is also a credit to those who persevered to restore, maintain and operate this remarkable vessel. (based on articles by Dieter Jebens and David Millett in BC News 161 Spring 1993, and 176 Autumn 1997 respectively)   NEXT - Canal railway BACK

Last updated January 2006; orig: July 2001