AN EXHIBITION AND PUBLIC MEETING

At Eastington Village Hall

SATURDAY 27TH JUNE 2 – 6 PM

Re-creating the ‘missing mile’ forms just one part of the unique range of complex engineering challenges. The restored Stroudwater Navigation will have to be taken under the Bristol-to-Birmingham railway line at Ocean Bridge, as well as ducking below the M5 motorway. Here, a new cutting is planned alongside the River Frome where the existing bridge is too low for navigation. There will also have to be two new road crossings at the big A38/A419 roundabout, as well as building new locks, bridges and an aqueduct.

The current phase of restoration that has already transformed a six-mile canal corridor from Hope Mill near Brimscombe Port, through Stroud to Stonehouse, is due to finish this Autumn. The next vital stage, to link up with the national canal network, will cost a total of £20 million, to include £5 million of ‘match’ funds won through a dedicated fundraising campaign targeting corporate and individual donations, plus more than £2 million-worth of volunteer effort.

There is quiet confidence that by 2020, Stroud, Stonehouse, Eastington, Whitminster and Frampton will once again become genuine canalside communities, with boats and other visitors bringing a vibrant and colourful new life - along with the other benefits already being enjoyed by towns and cities in Britain that have seen their watersides reborn.

Could canal boats head up the Stroudwater again?

The high-profile media launch of a Heritage Lottery Fund bid for £15 million towards the next phase of restoration took place on the Stroudwater on Thursday May 14, at an event full of symbolism. It will be followed by a six-week series of public exhibitions, including one at Eastington.

The latest project is set to bring Stroud, Stonehouse, Eastington and Whitminster within navigable reach of Britain’s 2,500 mile network of waterways once again. It will join up the missing link between the almost-completed restored section of canal from Stroud to Stonehouse and the junction with the Gloucester-Sharpness Canal at Saul leading towards the River Severn.

Watched by cameras from BBC Points West, the ceremony at the isolated Westfield Bridge – ‘the bridge in a field’ - featured local farmer Mrs Caroline Prentice, of Syde Park, Caudle Green, as guest of honour.

In 1969, her widowed mother, Mrs Christine Hearsey of Grove Farm, Eastington, made local history when she stood alone and determined for a whole day on this same bridge – triumphantly defying contractors who had been ordered to blow it up it to make way for the new motorway. They had already demolished part of the adjacent lock.

The bridge would have become one of the casualties of the scheme for road and drainage works on the family farm as part of the motorway project. But due to Mrs Hearsey’s fierce opposition, it was reprieved.

Using a traditional boaters’ highly-decorated ‘Buckby’ water-can, Mrs Prentice was filmed and photographed by the media as she poured a token pint of Severn river water from the bridge, against a backdrop of the so-called ‘missing mile’ of the Stroudwater - long since buried under meadow and concrete on its way West.

Exhibitions to present full details of the scheme,

as part of the public consultation, will take place at :-

The Canal and River Trust offices, at the entrance to Gloucester Docks, on Saturday May 30 Whitminster Village Hall on Saturday June 6

Frampton Village Hall on Saturday June 13

Stonehouse Community Centre on Saturday June 20

Eastington Village Hall on Saturday June 27

King St, (the former Eclipse shop) Stroud, on July 3 and 4.

 Photo: David Bowker-Praed.