West
Vale Branch |
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February 2003 Pipe removed |
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The webmaster was away sampling oysters in Whitstable, so Orph Mable has kindly supplied these words and pictures. It was a mild dry day with odd moments of sunshine. The slightly depleted team of Chris Forward, Graham Banks, Phil Large and Orph Mable were on site soon after 9 a.m. Our Chairman Alan Norris joined us a little after 10 a.m. with some excuse about a “Bowls Club” do!
The first job was to pump out the site. Bernard was up and running quickly but seemed to be a bit sluggish (No - it wasn’t with Alan the previous night!). Phil quickly dismantled the pump and found it somewhat full of stones and wood chips. Once re-assembled, Bernard functioned well and quickly reduced the water level in the working area. Orph was tasked with setting up the small 1" Honda pump on the west side of the workings to carry on when Bernard dropped the water level below the infill. Recently repaired by Chris, the little Honda worked well and achieved a very low level of “sludge” in the western pool in about 2 hours.
Graham, meanwhile, set on to get a bonfire alight to clear some of the various stumps and branches from earlier work-parties. Once the fire was “going”, Graham and Alan shifted a lot of combustible stuff and improved the tidiness of the work site. This activity took most of the day.
Once the water level was below the working area, Phil and Chris set on with the mini-digger to clear the brick infill and remove the pipe. The method was for Chris to remove the rubble, placing it behind the digger, then Phil would smash a 3ft pipe section using a sledge hammer. Chris would then remove the smashed pipe. In this way the pipe and infill was slowly removed. It was amazing, the amount of rubble that had to be cleared. During this work, Chris and Phil found some more coping stones which were salvaged for re-use.
By the end of the day, all the pipe was removed, leaving just the eastern concrete end wall in place. The invert was cleared down to a concrete layer (approximately 8ins thick), and the towpath was cleared for 2/3 the width of the bridge. On the non-towpath side of the bridge we discovered a ledge of bricks approximately level with the towpath. This was probably used to support the arch former when the bridge was originally constructed. Additionally, we discovered a vertical channel in the brick-work at the western edge of the non-towpath side of the arch, which may have been for stop-planks. There was even some remains of wood in the groove!
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