The Great Wall of Borrowash!

Whilst the weather has claimed a few cancelled working parties recently good progress has nevertheless been made with the main thrust at Borrowash where the restoration of the banks by Station Road has progressed rapidly. We have been lucky to be offered the blocks from a Nutbrook Canal bridge that needed to be moved. The development of Stanton Ironworks is now progressing so when we were approached by a director at Wards Recycling to ask if we wanted the blocks so they could clear the site we said yes please. And they offered to load up the blocks as well for us to transfer to be used in the wall at Borrowash. Unfortunately there was no practical option to use the stones as a bridge- the obvious candidates have already been restored. The teams had already planted out trees/whips along the boundary on the off bank. So with the pulling of stumps on one side and wall building on the other the line is really taking shape.

 In addition we’ve been planning the  start of the next season already. We’re working with the tourist office at DCC to promote the Riverboat trips. We’re looking to offer grouped activities—combining us with the Museum of Making and the Cathedral for example. This would then put us into the bus tours market. We are also looking at promotion on a national online booking system and of course we’ve also been looking at local promotion so hopefully we will continue to be popular. It will present a good opportunity to earn money and promote the canal restoration generally.

We now have a good team of licenced and trained drivers ready to go, but we need more cabin crew. The job is easy, only  requiring an ability to make coffee and talk to customers. We always work with two in the cabin, so if any supporter would like to offer their time to help and enjoy our beautiful river please come forward. There’s no formal commitment—just put your name on a rota. Please let us know if you are interested by emailing Liz Gordon, our Ops Manager, at liz.gordon@derbycanal.org.uk. We need your help!

Members’ Meetings  

We hold meetings with a speaker on fourth Tuesdays each month at the Canal Cottages Cafe, Draycott DE72 3PE.

Our next meeting is on Tuesday January 24th with a talk by Michael Thacker on the Railways in World War 1.

All are welcomed.

For more details on member’s meetings and other DSCT activities – please visit our calendar. at https://derbycanal.org.uk/events/