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RGT NEWS

ISSUE 4

APRIL 2010

EDITORIAL Where does time go to—I swear that it passes by quicker and quicker—it certainly seems only yesterday that we were compiling the last Newsletter. So what has been happening with the River Gipping Trust over the last six months? The answer must be ‗Steady Progress‘! Provided that the weather allows, we should have completed our work on Baylham lock by the end of 2010. With Baylham finished, we shall then allow Colin Turner, our Restoration Manager to achieve his most well deserved retirement. We are very pleased to welcome to the Trustees, Martin Bird as his replacement and wish him every success. A profile of Martin appears on Page 8. We cannot but express our thanks and gratitude to Colin for all his hard work and enthusiasm over a considerable number of years and trust that he will be available in the background for advice and assistance for a long time in the future. We are now formulating our plans for the future and are hoping that we will be able to tackle Badley lock, although there are currently problems concerning ownership and access. We are planning an investigative walk along the River, starting at Hawks Mill, in September and we would welcome any member to join us—the date will be notified in due course. The time is rapidly approaching when we will have to undertake an exten-sive and expensive feasibility study of the entire river. An important date is May 3rd when we will join forces with the IWA Ipswich Branch and the River Stour Trust at The Granary, Sudbury, from 10.30 am in support of the national Save our System 2010 Event Also we hope to have a presence at the Needham Market Raft Races on Sunday, 4th July starting at 14.30 pm There are contributions in this issue from our New Zealand member, Nick Plaistowe. One, the first part of a cruise he made on the Basingstoke Canal, the other, the start of a trip on a cargo ship—both will be continued next issue. See you at the AGM on Tuesday, 18th May—details of the Accounts for 2009-2010 Agenda on Pages 11 & 12.

LEWIS TYLER (Secretary)

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RESTORATION IN WINTER Following on from the success of the canal camps, and now with a sound base to work from, we ex-tended our scaffolding along the length of the eastern wall and continued the demolition and rebuilding of the wall. Problem When we got to the point where the engineers report stated that, for heritage reasons, we should cease demolition and pin the hollow sounding existing wall with stainless steel ties to the original core, we found that the face of the wall was a 9‖ repair that had not been tied in to the original core of the wall. It was also separated from the core by a dirt filled gap that was too large for ties and too dirty for grout to be effective. When lock gates are fitted in the fu-ture the wooden quoin, forming part of the gate hinge, will bear against the end of this wall, there would be a possibility that the water pressure would cause the de-tached section of wall to move.

Solution Following separate visits by our engineer and the council‘s con-servation officer and much cor-respondence between them we were granted a variation to our listed building consent to demol-ish the old repair and rebuild with original bricks and lime mor-tar tied in to the core brick work to match the rest of the wall. Weather This work has almost been com-pleted up to within two courses of the top of the wall but the frost

and high water have delayed us for the last two months. On one high water event a large tree crashed into our top stop plank and broke it, on two other occasions trees have obstructed the mill sluice causing increased water flow through the lock and additional work for us to remove them. The water has forced our scaffolding away from the lock side so it will need a complete re-build before we can use it again.

Eastern wall nearly complete.

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FROM THE TREASURER’S PC It‘s that time of year that Treasurers dread most – the financial year end. Our year finishes on 31

st March so getting this report in to the editor on time has

been a bit of struggle. Starting with our income, this year has been the best to date in that we‘ve received just over £17,500. A signifi-cant part of that income (£12,499) was given to us by the Inland Waterways Association towards continued restoration work on the River Gipping. We received around £3000 in donations and a further £1200 from Membership income. A large part of our donation reve-nue has come from the talks we do to local groups. Scrap metal prices have started to rise again and we got another £700 from that source. The dramatic decline in Interest rates has reduced our income from that source. The largest part of our expenditure this year has been restoration costs. That totalled just over £9000 but the IWA donation mentioned earlier softened the blow! Hidden within that £9000 are such things as £1450 for ready mixed con-crete, £2000 for sand, aggregate and cement and £2700 for hiring earth moving equipment. Restoration doesn‘t come cheap these days. Thankfully we use vol-unteer labour – without that I doubt we would get any restoration work done at all because we couldn‘t afford it.

There is more to see in the accounts but why not come to the AGM and ask me a few questions?

Tree removal Whilst we have been unable to work in the lock, we have been removing trees, at the request of the Environment Agency, that are damaging the road bridge. However this work was also held up by high water levels and two work parties had to be called off as there was nothing that we could do.

COLIN TURNER ***********

Old repair not tied in.

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CMA CGM VELA 30 May 2009 - 2º 55.845N 101º 17.525E Finally, at 9.30 yesterday evening, the agent sent one of his minions to collect me from my seedy Port Kelang hotel. It was not the cheapest of accommodation ei-ther – US$ 53 for my seven hours there – but I had to have somewhere secure to wait. Muggings and drive-by thefts are said to be common here, and worst in the port areas. The Vela is an enormous vessel – 347 metres from stem to stern, and 45 metres wide. She can carry 11,000 TEUs (standard size, twenty foot boxes). The accom-modation block has eight main decks, with the bridge deck above that, and about 55 metres above the water level. She was only built last year and, in fact, I wonder if my extensive accomodation has ever been occupied before. The woodwork has that fresh smell about it. Captain Fierer is obviously hugely proud of being the master of this ship, the largest under the German flag, and one of the largest man-made vehicles on earth. She is almost as big as the Queen Mary II, but with a mere 30 of us aboard, not quite so crowded! He welcomed me aboard last night and, straight after breakfast this morning gave me a guided tour of the accommo-dation block. He allows his passengers‘ free access to the bridge deck at all times, with only the one, entirely reasonable, condition, that they do not chatter while there is a pilot advising on navigation. His tour was followed by the usual 4

th

Our work at Baylham is not yet complete but the major restoration work on the in-vert and lock walls is drawing to a close. We need to do some patch work on the western wall but our main efforts will be to restore the entire site to its original con-dition. This will involve sorting through the huge pile of spoil to separate the topsoil from the hard core. Then we will need to hire a digger and a couple of dumpers to run the hardcore up the road to a skip. That will probably be another £500 or so. Even volunteers need protection from the hazards found on a construction site so we needed insurance cover at £530. That cover is particularly important in the cur-rent climate when people seem to be ready to sue at the drop of a hat – or in our case, the drop of a brick! We have public liability cover of ten million pounds, just in case. Because we are going to more and more venues telling people about our work we needed to reprint our Vision statements and membership leaflets which cost just over £1500. Unfortunately the computer which we use to do our presentations finally decided that it couldn‘t carry on any more! It was second hand when it was given to us and despite lots of TLC it needed to be replaced. This, with the relevant software, cost nearly £600 but we decided it was an essential item that had to be replaced.

SPENCER GREYSTRONG *******

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THE BASINGSTOKE Passage to Deepcut My wife and I regretfully passed the entrance to the Basingstoke in 1996. We had a wonderful eight weeks, but just lacked the time for a diversion to Odiham. In any case, I seem to remember that pas-sage then, was discouraged, if not impossible. To repair the 1996 omission, I made arrangements, for a week in last July, to hire a vessel, from Galleon Marine. The boat was 54 feet long and fitted with an optimistic eight berths, but I thought would be fairly tight for so many. However, with only three of us aboard, I thought that we should do well enough. The weather provided driz-zling rain as we moved on board, so we decided to take life easily, and stayed at the boatyard until the following morning.

Mate‘s safety tour, for both me and for a new rating, who also came aboard yesterday. I have two fellow passengers, who are on the whole round trip from Hamburg to Korea and back. Both are German and retired, but I think a little younger than me – Herr Hartig from Ber-lin and Herr Esse from Koln. Each has fluent

English, but they naturally use Deutsch between themselves, and also with the Ger-man officers. Hopefully, such immersion in the language will benefit my own attempts at it. Herr Esse is on his first freighter voyage and has left a wife, who was doubtful about the whole idea. She has remained at home with the dog! He has enjoyed him-self so much though, that he hopes to persuade her to come with him in the future. Herr Hartig is a bachelor. No doubt further details will emerge. Anyway, they are both blessed with good senses of humour and I think I will enjoy their company over the next couple of weeks. 31 May 2009 - 5° 56.06N 96°22.86E Rose at six and trotted upstairs to make sure that the lads had the ship pointed in the right direction. Found the 1

st Mate and an apprentice on duty, and soon joined by the

4th Mate. This ship, because of her great size, is provided with an extra watch-keeper

officer. All three were very welcoming and greeted me with coffee and explanations of their gadgetry. It seems that each time I head off to sea, there are new and im-proved types of navigation devices. 3

rd Mate Huelsmann is particularly outgoing in his

approach to all around him. He stands well over two metres and would do well in a number eight jersey on a rugby paddock.

NICK PLAISTOWE *******

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Wednesday morning dawned much im-proved, but the night had been chilly, with insufficient bedding. Deciding it was essen-tial to get more, we waited for the owner to appear at 10 am, and he quickly obliged with another duvet and a centre mooring line. We were under way eastwards by 10.30, aiming for lunch at the Barley Mow. It was charming sailing, as if through a forest of mature oaks. The forest is actually quite narrow, but it was almost like travelling through a land which might have been familiar to our ancestors of 2,000 years ago. The only jarring note was the aircraft. This is very much a military area, with Alder-shot and Farnborough nearby. We moored at a former loading staithe, near Crookham. Overnight, I was woken at 03.00 am by a call from NZ and a strange noise coming from the forward cabin. I realised that it was the water pump com-plaining about an insufficient water, so turned it off. Checking the possibilities, it came down to a leak, or a very small tank. The nearest water supply in the morn-ing gave us a miserly two gallons per minute, and had the tank overflowing after half an hour. It seemed we had just 60 gallons aboard. How this would do for eight people, is hard to imagine. A quick hand-wash, a cup of tea apiece, and you would need a tap! We set off eastwards again to finish for the day just south of Ash Vale. The town has a reputation for vandalism, but was useful to restock groceries and, for us, was

incident free. Descending Ash Lock, the only lock we were to use on this cruise. We found it in sur-prisingly good order and had help with moving the gates from a local walker. He was from Aldershot and said that we were the first boat he had ever seen passing through the lock. The strangest thing about this cruise was the absence of other boats on the move. We passed just one, also from Galleon marine. Although in the school holi-days, the lack of a usable connection to the rest of the waterway system must be the reason. We

though had the advantage of always finding a mooring place, given there was enough depth. The following day we pressed on southwards again to what had to be our furthest east, at the top of Deepcut; the beginning of the 28 locks down to the Wey. How-ever the locks were under repair so we made our turn in the dry dock entrance; just tight enough turn for our 54 foot boat. As we turned there was a rumble of thunder and the skies opened. Soon though, the sunshine was back; more like the changeable stuff of spring

NICK PLAISTOWE

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PROFILE

As something of a newcomer to the River Gipping Trust I‗ve put together the following few notes by way of an in-troduction. I was born and brought up on the outskirts of Birmingham in the 1950‘s and can still remember visiting Gas Street Basin and Farmers Bridge, when the only access was through a hole in the wall next to the old Birmingham Canal Carriers company offices. The basin was still enclosed by old wooden warehouses and home to a number of working boats and their families. It was like entering a different world. My first experience on the canals was as a student when I was introduced to the joys of cruising the Trent and Mersey over New Year 1971 by a friend on the same course, (Town and Country Planning at University of Newcastle upon Tyne). This turned into something of an annual event, and a group of us hired Willow Wren Boats from Middlewich and Rugby for a number of years, with trips carefully arranged to place us at a suitable pub for New Year‘s Eve. After University I moved to the Westcountry ( it was a lot warmer than Newcastle!). Pauline and I married and we settled in Devon for 20 odd years, where our two sons, Andy (now living in Denver, Colorado) and David were born. There weren‘t many cruising opportunities in the area at the time, but one of our favourite walks was to follow the course of the Exeter Ship Canal via the Double locks (only one lock really, but an excellent pub), to its end at the Turf Hotel, another pub sited where the canal joins the Exe estuary and an excellent spot for a bit of birdwatching. I‘ve worked in the Voluntary Housing Sector most of my working life, first in the South West and then from 2001 in East Anglia as Regional Director for Sanctuary Housing. For most of my career I was involved with developing new social housing. My final post with Sanctuary was to lead on bids for major new projects, one of the most interesting and suc-cessful of which was the provision of staff accommodation at Addenbrookes hospital Cam-bridge. I took early retirement in April 2009 and celebrated with a trip along the Oxford Canal with the family, got home, searched on the web and came across the River Gipping Trust . I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to follow my interests in industrial archaeology, canals and wildlife and keep fit at the same time. It‘s cheaper than a gym and much more fun. So, I joined the crew at Baylham and after a year of discovering a whole new range of skills, including the joys of brick cleaning and barrowing clay from one end of the site to the other and generally getting wet and muddy and enjoying it, I‘ve been ―volunteered‖ to shadow Colin and prepare to pick up the reins at an appropriate time in the future. It will be a hard act to follow!

MARTIN BIRD

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Barry Green Former Chairman of former Norwich IWA Branch

Vera Lilley Friend of Pete Bowers

We welcome the following new Life Members since August 2009

We welcome the following new Members since August 2009

We regret to announce that the following members have died since August 2009

We most also record the passing of James Hoseason, O.B.E. who played a major role in promoting the waterways system. Also Alan Matthews who set up and was the force behind Ownerships. Three of the RGT Trustees are long-term participants in this large shared-ownership scheme for canal boats Doug Tomlinson who died in 2008 has left a bequest to Ipswich IWA

Brenda Barnard Martin Bird Anthony Burles

Darrell Chalkley Susan Davis Ernest Goodaway

David Halls Izzy Lane Fergus Muir

Keith Raper Gay Tollemache Michael Tollemache

Anne Tooth Mary Young

A couple of photos of the tree jammed at Baylham lock

Peter Challis John France David Gager

Nick Plaistowe Chard Wadley

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WORKING PARTY DATES

AT BAYLHAM LOCK

09.00 -17.00

Wednesday 5th May Wednesday 21st July

Saturday 8th May Wednesday 28th July

Wednesday 12th May Wednesday 4th August

Wednesday 19th May Saturday 7th August

Wednesday 26th May Wednesday 11th August

Wednesday 2nd June Wednesday 18th August

Saturday 5th June Wednesday 25th August

Wednesday 9th June Wednesday 1st September

Wednesday 16th June Saturday 4th September

Wednesday 23rd June Wednesday 8th September

Wednesday 30th June Wednesday 15th September

Saturday 3rd July Wednesday 22nd September

Wednesday 7th July Wednesday 29th September

Wednesday 14th July Saturday 2nd October

Editor: Lewis J. Tyler. Church Cottage, Capel St. Mary, Ipswich, IP9 2EL (01473) 310381

secretary@rivergippingtrust.org.uk www.rivergippingtrust.org.uk

This edition produced in Microsoft Publisher 2007

Views that may be expressed in this Newsletter are not necessarily the views of the River Gipping Trust or its Trustees

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TALKS DIARY 2010/11

Date/Time Organisation Place

Friday 1900

12/2/10

River Stour Trust Sudbury

Tuesday Pm

16/2/10

Ipswich Engineering Soc. Ipswich

Thursday Noon

11/3/10

Ipswich Rotary Ipswich

Wednesday 1930

21/4/10

Sproughton Parish Council Sproughton

Tuesday 1930

27/4/10

Bramford Parish Council Church Room Ship Lane Bramford

Thursday 1900

29/4/10

Coddenham Parish Council Community and Sports Hall

Coddenham Wednesday

12/5/10 Belstead Garden Club Belstead

Wednesday 19.30 5/5/10

Great Blakenham Parish Council

Great Blakenham

Tuesday 1400

25/5/10

Salvation Army Stowmarket

Thursday 1400

28/10/10

U3A Blackbourne

Thurston

Tuesday 1930

2/11/10

Tostock Past & Present Soc. Village Hall Tostock

16 or 23/11/10

National Trust Ipswich

Ipswich

Wednesday 8/12/10

Suffolk Industrial Archaeology Soc.

Ipswich

Friday Evening 25/3/11

In-Between Club Castle Hill URC Dryden Rd

Ipswich

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NOTICE OF THE THIRD ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF

THE RIVER GIPPING TRUST The AGM will be held at Needham Market Community Centre on Tuesday, 18th. May 2010 at 7.30 pm.

AGENDA

1 Apologies for absence

2 Minutes of AGM held 15th May 2009

3 Chairman's Report

4 Secretary‘s Report

5 Adoption of Annual Accounts

6 Membership Secretary‘s Report

7 Election of Directors

This will conclude the formal business of the evening but we will continue with an informal discussion during which we hope to give you a flavour of the current and future activities of the Trust. After that we will break for refreshments and welcome Stuart Grimwade and Des Pawson from the Ipswich Maritime Trust.