Stratford St Mary Lock Restoration

Overview.

For about 40 years the River Stour Trust (RST) (a charity registered as a limited company) has been working to maintain, improve, and protect the River Stour Navigation. The River Stour below Ballingdon Bridge in Sudbury officially became a navigation in 1705 but nearly lost this status in the mid 20^th century.

A current important project of the RST is to restore the historic lock on the edge of the parish of Stratford St Mary. This lock was last restored in the 1930s by the water company that had just received Royal Assent to allow for impounding and extracting water at the site. By the end of the 20^th Century the lock was in a poor state and totally unusable for its primary purpose. The Trust has organised working parties at the site for many years and more recently at least once a month (the third Saturday of each month – visitors and volunteers welcome!) since the start of 2006. Using volunteer effort our hope is to completely restore the lock to working condition by the end of 2008. We will need to raise tens of thousands of pounds to achieve this (mainly for new lock gates).

During the late Spring and Summer of 2007 we intend to build a new footbridge to the site, and to restore the 180m lock channel (below the lock) to navigable conditions. We will then seek permission and finance to restore the lock itself and obtain and fit new lock gates.

The RST is working with co-operation from Essex and Suffolk Water; we have also consulted with and sought permission from Colchester Borough Council and the Environment Agency.

SSM-1

8/8/07-Hardcore Day!

A quick visit to site this morning to drop of another water pump (we now have 4). Whilst I was there Anglia Landscapes turned up with the first load of hardcore (crushed Concrete) to go in the gabions. A quick call to Roger to check where he wanted it and we soon had the lorry on site tipping the first load. In total about 140 tonnes of crushed concrete is required and it will all be moved across the river in wheelbarrows on the raft by hand. The gabion are being assembled (they arrive flat packed), I stayed for a while and gave Sue a hand, they are much easier to do with 2 people. This job is not very physical just a little bit awkward and if anyone would like to volunteer to help Sue with these please drop-in!.

2/8/07-Digger Day!

Today was the day that the digger arrived on site. More important though however was the moving of the digger by raft to the lock island. A raft has been loaned to the Trust by Electromobile Ltd a company owned and operated by one of our members Jeff Burroughs and business partner Graham Moore. The raft had already been part assembled prior to delivery to site and finished off with the 2 half's being joined at the waters edge ready to be launched. Once the handrails, mooring lines and banners were fitted the raft was ready for use.

The digger first of all dug a small slipway down to the waters edge, being careful not to remove any of the flood prevention higher ground. It was then possible to drive the digger straight onto the raft. The raft was secured to the bank using ratchet straps and a small temporary ledge had been created under water for the edge of the raft to sit on during the initial stages of loading.

Tony from Whitnell Plant Hire offered to drive the machine onto the raft mentioning it was a similar manoeuvre to loading a machine onto a trailer. Once the digger was on the raft, the raft was then pulled across the channel (stopping for some publicity photo's) before being driven of the raft and up onto the bank on the lock island. This proved a bit more of a challenge as the water levels in the upper stretch of river continued to drop overnight. The bank was not as level with the digger as we might of liked but Tony again drove the machine and carefully edged it off the raft and up onto the bank.

We now have a digger on the island ready to start work in the channel. The raft will continue to be used on this job ferrying materials and people to and from the island.

For more details of Versadock raft solutions from Electromobile-Click Here.

28/7/07-Pictures from Jane Malins

Thanks to all the volunteers that all turned up the lower dam was in place ready for the river level to be returned to normal. As you can see it was quite a job with lots of sand bags being filled and placed in the larger ton bags. The upper dam across the chunker was also improved with more sand bags being placed on top. The green boat is Laurie B and is used to ferry people across to the island.

Thanks to Jane for the photo's.

16/6/07

Work continued to clear the vegetation from the site, mostly just a few of the older tree stumps that had been pulled up on earlier working parties. Les worked the strimmer all day and cleared a good amount of the nettles which had grown very rapidly with the very wet warm weather we have been having this summer. We also had some new visitors to the site, 2 swans and signets were seen at the top of the channel near the lock, something only now possible as the channel was cleared of all obstructions above the water line and some friends from Melbourne Australia. John is an engineer and shared some of his idea with Roger our engineer. 

19/5/07-To be added (watch this space!)

22/4/07

Spring is now with us and as you can see everything is starting to grow again. The river level returned to normal soon after the floods we had in January and the levels shown here are more normal. Work continued on clearing the fallen and cut tree branches from the channel. Les was a star putting his maritime skills to good use securing the winch chain to a floating tree branch, a change of clothes being required soon after! The Tirfor winch was certainly well used on this occasion pulling most of the bigger branches out easily and under control. Also shown is the "armalock" blocks which will all need to be lifted and relaid once the gabbions (metal cages containing rock) have been placed at the lower edge of the spillway.

17/3/07

Sorry, No pictures this time as my camera was playing up. It has since been replaced. Thanks must go to Chard this working party for operating his chainsaw non stop for nearly the whole day. We had to remove all of the trees that had fell into the channel if we were going to complete this part of the project this year. All tree cutting must be done by the end of March so as to avoid the bird nesting season. Most of the tree branches that had fell into the cut were cut up and removed although several of the larger ones were just cut and left till the following working party in April. The vegetation on the spillway was continued to be removed, another preparation job for works later this year. 

(Feb' working parties missed, due to my annual holiday. Sorry!)

20/1/07

First Working party of the new year and we were in for a shock. The river level had risen considerably over the last few days and the river was in flood. The usual team of willing volunteers arrived to survey what could be done and to watch in awe at the power of the water as it rushed past the site and through the sluice gates into the old mill pond. It was decided at first not to launch the work boat "Laurie B" and Les together with John Mallins walked around to the island to see what could be done. Following this most of the team gathered for a cup of tea in the works caravan to decide what, if anything could be done that day. After much chatting (and another cup of tea!) some of our volunteers left deciding the river was flowing too fast to cross.

However the river level started to drop, the landing stages started to show and a smaller group launched the boat and crossed the river. Some tools and more volunteers followed (all wearing lifejackets). The newly purchased Turfor winch was brought across and put to good use pulling some of the tree stumps out of the ground and moving some of the other larger pieces of tree that had been felled at earlier working parties.

We finished around 3.00pm with the feeling of a day well spent on the site.

16/12/06

Want to spend some time outside in the sun? Then come to one of the working parties, yet again we had a fantastic warm and sunny day, not bad for December. Today we spent most of our time on, in or next to the 180metre channel that leads downstream from the lock to the mill pool. We surveyed the cut and placed marker posts to show where the edge of the channel is to enable this to be compared with the plans of the site. Measurements were taken of the width and depth at 25metre intervals. This information will also be used to draw up the cross sections of the channel as required by the Environment Agency.

Once this was done we then spent some time clearing old branches that had fallen into the cut. This was a great team job and involved many volunteers pulling the quite large pieces out of the water with a rope. We had upwards of 10 volunteers on site and we all had a great time seeing immediately the results of our work. The task of clearing and improving the cut will continue at the next working party and as many volunteers again, perhaps a few new ones, would make a big difference.

Up near the lock we were told by the EA to remove the earth that had been built up around the trees. This didn't take too long and the tree trunks are now exposed again. Our Vice-President Francis Batten came to site, arriving just as the kettle had boiled. He must have smelt the tea being made as he left Sudbury!

We would like to increase our fundraising to help complete the works required and buy the materials and specialist services that are required. If you have any ideas relating to fundraising please drop me an email jeff@riverstour.com.

18/11/06

21/10/06

A great day was had by all that attended and helped on this working party. The sun shone for most of the day after a wet start. Progress was made in opening the second lower lock gate. The work was wet and muddy and most people ended up wearing it or covered in it! Roger was exceptionally good at making tea today and we never went without a fresh cup of tea at any break. Much discussion was had over dinner as to what to do next and how best to do it with many new suggestions coming forward. A big thank you to both Peter and Chard from the Ipswich branch of the IWA without whom we would not have achieved the goal of opening the second gate.

We were especially pleased to welcome six visitors to the site who came to see what we were up to-one of them, Simon, even volunteered to push quite a few barrow loads up the slippery slope. Visitors are always welcome.

The next working party is on the 18th of November. We would like to see more willing volunteers. If you feel like attending for the day, a morning or just a few hours please contact John Morris our project co-ordinator or just arrive on the day at the Suffolk & Essex pumping station in Stratford St Mary. Find the big building shown in the picture below, you won't miss it. If you would like to make a donation to help with this restoration please send your Donations to The River Stour Trust, The Granary, Quay Lane, Sudbury, Suffolk. Please mark your donation for use at the Stratford Lock and we will ensure your donation is put to good use.

Thank you. See you at the next one.

 www.riverstour.com