The repaired old wall at Wallbridge wharf

I gained a few minutes in between appointments around lunchtime today, so I parked at Wallbridge and went to have a look at the repaired wall beside the Thames and Severn canal. The restoration of this canal whose first phase is nearly complete, allowed for the water in the canal to flow freely once again and for a brand new road bridge to take the A46 over the canal.

The site was once the industrial heart of the old town of Stroud and the important local Stroud Brewery, (nothing to do with its recent and very good reincarnation) was built adjacent to the canal. The wall in my picture was part of the brewery wharf area and included big cellars in the rooms behind these iron bars. When the brewery was demolished as part of the makeover of modern Stroud in the 1960s, the site was left in a mess and the cellars were left behind. The land ownership became confused during road widening and eventually no-one body was prepared to take responsibility for repairing the site.

Recently the land on the far or north side of the canal was handed over by the county Council to the town council and the Cotswold Canal Trust organised their amazing teams of volunteers to completely strip out the damage and repair the wall to match the original canal frontage. And it looks excellent.

I stood on the old towpath on the south side and took this picture which shows the arch above me of the original narrow bridge which lead the old road from Bath across the canal and into the town centre. A hundred yards downstream the canal volunteers have also completed the complete restoration of Lower Wallbridge lock. The gates to the Upper Wallbridge lock were just a few yards from where I was standing.