Length:
O.S. Reference: 390888 to 394892
Water Level height A.O.D.: 84.038m (by calculation) (Seven Mile Pound level)
Features:
What Jack Dalby said in 1985:
".....the site of Stockham's bridge at 390888. Beyond, the bed soon enters a cutting filled with debris from the long disused airfield. Traces of the brickwork of Hunter's bridge can be found at 392889. The approach to Barwell bridge has been levelled.
To the east of Barwell Bridge, the canal still performs its original function, carrying coal."
From Stockham's Bridge, the first 20 yards or so is filled with gravel, which in the past 3 years or so (i.e. since 1997) has become covered with vegetation.
The next 200 yds or so is in water, though possibly not to full depth, in a cutting up to the site of Hunter's Bridge. The margins are rather overgrown, and there are a lot of broken branches etc. in the water.
Hunter's Bridge was an arch, and the abutments are still visible. The arch has been broken down, and the bridgehole infilled.
A photpgraph exists.
From here the canal entered a cutting, now infilled and grassed over, with young trees planted on part of it. It is beleived that it was filled with debris and redundant material at the end of the war, when the adjoining airfield was decommissioned. It would have been a fairly deep cutting. The towpath hedge exists over part of this length, and the course of the Canal can easily be traced.
At the eastern end of this stretch of the line is blocked by the lowered and infilled Barwell Bridge, carrying Barwell Lane. Just before this will be the site of the re-sited Grove Top Lock, which could be re-named when it is built. Barwell Lock, perhaps.
Beyond the road is the Coal Yard, now no longer in use, and scheduled for building tacky houses. (1997 note: now developed.) There is then a short landscaped area before the line is again cut by that monstrous act of vandalism, Barwell Link Road, which was built at a lower level than the original Barwell Lane and is going to cause considerable difficulty in getting under it.
The towpath is on the north side of the Canal.
The cleared section obviously needs only clearance and possibly a little dredging. The public footpath, which should be the towpath, now runs along the edge of the field at the edge of the cutting. It would be nice to restore this.
However the eastern end will require a considerable diversion, including a new lock - possibly two - to pass under Barwell Lane and Mably Way, and circumvent the houses that have been built on the line.
A public footpath runs along beside the Canal, but does not precisely follow the towpath - at least as far as people actually use it.
It should not be a problem to reinstate it onto the towpath when restoration is complete.
None evident, but the whole section is in a cutting, so there should be some runoff.
None in the immediate vicinity.
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