The Bow Knife  -  4

Newsletter of the ‘Duchess Countess’ Packet-boat Trust

Extracts from the Spring 2005 edition

George Watson Buck lands at Llanymynech 

Watched by several members of the Shropshire Union Canal Society who had organised and paid for the craning and transporting and members of the Duchess Countess Trust who were the grateful recipients the George Watson Buck was lowered into the canal at Llanymynech at noon on February 17th. The boat was formerly operated as a trip boat for the disabled, by the Beatrice Trust, on the Caldon Canal.  It has twelve seats, a ramp and lift to enable disabled passengers to board, a toilet and a small galley. The Beatrice Trust have acquired a new boat and wanted a good home for the boat and they were also present to witness her arrival.  They had to gift the boat to an established charity and  SUCS has taken over the title but she is being operated by the Packet-boat ‘Duchess Countess’ Trust as a community boat for Llanymynech. One condition of the gift is that she is re-named. The Shropshire Union Canal Society has also generously paid for insurance and licensing for twelve months. Once we have proved that we can manage the operation successfully, the title to the boat should pass to us.

A Trust is born

The Packet-boat ‘Duchess Countess’ Trust was constituted at an open meeting of the ‘Duchess Countess’ Project on 31st March .

The Trust is a not-for-profit community-based company which, by its nature, will have no share capital.  The project to build a full-scale replica of the ‘Duchess Countess’ remains the Trust’s long-term goal.   

In the meantime the Trust has been commissioned  by British Waterway to undertake the day-to-day management of the Llanymynech Wharf Visitor Centre and prepare ‘George Watson Buck’ for running trips from the Wharf in 2006.

The success of the Trust will depend on the support of its membership.  It is hoped that everyone who has been supporting  the project to re-create the famous canal packet-boat ‘Duchess Countess’ will become subscribing members of the Trust.

We also need your help in running the Centre, managing and operating the George Watson Buck’.

Please join today  .  .  .  .  YOU can make the difference!

Llanymynech launch  -  7th May

Two days of events centred on the new trip boat and the Canal Visitor’s Centre at Llanymynech will take place early in May. The trip boat will be re-named at a ceremony on 6th May 2005. This will be done at a gathering of invited guests involved in the acquisition of the boat and the opening of the Wharf Stable Block as a Visitor Centre.

On Saturday, 7th May, a variety of events will again centre on the Wharf and the Visitor Centre at Llanymynech. Included will be displays, demonstrations and three guided walks (to see the spring woodland flowers, to see the industrial archaeology of the adjoining Heritage Area, and a walk along the canal to Maesbury).

Members of the Duchess Countess Trust helped by Llanymynech W.I. will provide light refreshments during the day.

We hope that you will help encourage as many as possible to attend the event and help publicise the opening of the new facilities to as wide a spectrum of people as possible.

We’ve crossed the into Wales—and aground already!

After the ‘George Watson Buck’ arrived at Llanymynech, the problem was what to do with her while the wharf area was being restored.  The best hope seemed to be the winding hole on the Welsh side of the A483 bridge over the canal.

This was easier planned than done.  Firstly, the bridge was propped up underneath to support the weight of traffic passing over it.  If you have ever stood below it when a heavy truck passed above, you will have realised it is long overdue for the replacement promised for many years and constantly postponed.

There was also a full height wooden barrier put in place because the pair of swans whose territory is that area, kept getting separated and distressed when one would clamber over the original lower barrier and his mate could not manage it.

The digger got to work and cleared a narrow route between buttressing and bridge and the barrier was removed.  Then an underwater blockage of silt was discovered which was also cleared.

Geoff Gilman and John Martin gingerly negotiated under the bridge with only an inch or so to spare and nosed into Wales—the first boat other than maintenance craft to float on this section for 60 years!

Then they ran aground on a shoal of silt and debris and had to be pushed forward over the worst by a digger’s bucket and hauled over other parts. Eventually she was coaxed against the far bank from the Dolphin car park and tied up.  There she can be accessed by courtesy of Mr   whose yard abuts this stretch.

When she is worked on, she is pulled over to the other bank where access is easier to do maintenance.

Lyn Rogers has made sturdy wooden protective covers for the windows to help prevent vandalism.

George Watson Buck (1789–1854)

George Buck was born at Stoke Holy Cross, near Norwich, on 1 April 1789, the son of Quakers, and was educated at the Quaker School at Ackworth, Yorkshire.  His first job was working for a wholesaler at Tower Hill, London, but he was unhappy there and eventually obtained a position at Old Ford Pumping Station which was being constructed for the East London water Works to designs by Ralph Walker.  He later worked as resident engineer, under Walker, on the Farlington water supply scheme near Portsmouth.

In 1819 he was appointed engineer of the Eastern Branch of the Montgomeryshire Canal in 1819, some 22 years after it had opened from Carreghofa to Garthmyl.  This had been constructed by the Dadsford brothers, John and Thomas, but the quality of work had been poor.  Buck had to rebuild Brithdir Aqueduct using a cast-iron trough, he introduced cast-iron lock gates, and was responsible for the various overbridges which use cast iron ‘fish-bellied’ beams.  In 1823 work started on the bulging distorted masonry of the Vyrnwy Aqueduct using wrought-iron tie rods and cast-iron facing plates, together with cast-iron beams on the actual arch face.  Although this work looks make-shift, it has enabled the aqueduct to survive to the current day.  Buck also used cast iron for railings on the aqueducts.  He introduced the distinctive new form of paddle gear for the lock sluices in 1831.

In 1832 he was also made engineer for the Western Branch of the Montgomeryshire Canal, from Garthmyl to Newtown, which had been built by Josias Jessop in 1815–19.  However, back in 1821 Buck had designed the waterwheel to pump water from the Severn to the top pound at Newtown.

He left canal employment in December 1833 to become one of Robert Stephenson’s team building the London & Birmingham Railway, thus was one of the surprisingly few engineers who transferred from canals to railways.  In 1838 he became solely responsible for building the railway from Manchester to Crewe, his best known structures being the Dane and Stockport Viaducts.

He was an innovative engineer, a pioneer in the use of iron in canal engineering, and produced what became the standard textbook on skew bridges.  Ill health forced his retirement in the mid-1840s.  He retired to the Isle of Man, becoming increasingly engrossed in a study of the Scriptures.  Francis Conder, in Personal Recollections of English Engineers, wrote ‘his shrewd grey eye, half inquisitive, half deficient, twinkled with apparent love of fun’.  

                                                                                                                                              Peter Brown