The reopening of the Grand Western Canal

You may remember me mentioning in a previous post (which I can’t find) the Grand Western Canal and its breach after heavy rain in November 2012. Well it’s now been repaired and Frog, Dog and I went along to have a look last weekend.

Here is the breach, which sent tons of water into the field below. Luckily the canal rangers had managed to close floodgates one side of the breach before it happened. On the other side locals, rangers and the emergency services worked through the night to set up a blockade. (So water was not lost from the entire eleven miles of the canal, as reported by the Daily Mail.)

This is not my picture. I got it from Google but I think it was captured at the time on someone's mobile phone.

Here is the repaired stretch of canal. It looks a bit bleak at the moment, but I don’t think it’ll be long before nature moves back.

Spot the dog (and the frog)

A typical canal 'narrowboat'

Here is what the canal looked like a month before the breach:

Here is another canal (the Taunton and Bridgewater) in July last year, its banks a riot of wildflowers:

Yellow loosestrife, a plant that only grows in wet places

Hemp agrimony (the salmon-coloured flower in the background) and marsh woundwort (in the foreground), two more plants that need wet feet

 
At the time they were being built (about two hundred years ago), canals were hated by landowners for intruding on property, but now they are loved by walkers, cyclists, fishers, boaters and - most importantly - wildlife.