Mark Womersley has been glad to help provide some additional lime training and support to volunteers working on the Grantham Canal Restoration in Lincolnshire to help them rebuild and repair the header chamber at lock 14. The training course in May involved around 20 volunteers.

Training would looked at the history of lime mortars used on the canal networks before practical working mixing and building with Ionic Old White NHL3.5 and a blend of tow sharp sands to re-bed  the old bricks and rebuild the chamber which comprises of wall 7 bricks wide

The Grantham Canal Navigation was originally built over only 4 years and completed in 1797, ran from near Trent Bridge and was 33 miles long and rose 140 feet up to Grantham through 18 wide locks. In addition to coal, the canal carried various bulk materials such as stone and lime and ‘night soil’. The opening of the Grantham to Nottingham railway in 1850 foreshadowed the eventual demise of the canal. A Closure Act was passed in 1936 and in 1963 control of the canal passed to British Waterways. The Grantham Canal Restoration Society was formed in 1969 and in collaboration with British Waterways, the Inland Waterways Association and the Waterway Recovery Group, began the long road to full restoration.

Lock 15 has recently been completed and the volunteers have moved on to Lock 14 which is another major rebuild, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund