Dredging Operations on the Basingstoke Canal, including the Perseverance dredger, 1993
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- Опубликовано: 7 сен 2024
- This video shows dredging operations going on on the Basingstoke Canal in Fleet in early 1993, right at the end of the restoration period. Bantam tugs can be seen pulling mud barges to the dredging site (near Pondtail bridge), and the Perseverance dredger filling them. The barges are then taken to Crookham Deeps to be emptied. Some good close-ups of the tugs, and particularly of Perseverance itself.
A chap called John Bull produced the video, and we acknowledge his contribution. This is what it says on the back of the DVD case:
"The Surrey & Hampshire Canal Society's steam dredger "Perseverance" started its operations at Colt Hill, Odiham at the beginning of 1975 and finished at Pondtail, Fleet in March 1993. Over one hundred thousand cubic metres of silt were removed, opening up 10 miles of the canal for navigation, entirely by voluntary effort.
This tape has been compiled from video taken by two visiting groups in February and March 1993, and my own filming of tugs/barges and the dragline in 1993.
Whilst Perseverance is obviously the object of greatest interest to the public at large, it has already been subject of extensive videotape recordings. Consequently, I have tried to focus on the other essential elements of the overall operation, the tugs/barges, the oft-ignored dragline, the restored canal itself, and in particular the volunteers.
I have run the programme as a "day in the life of...." sequence, which has only been possible by shuffling the material chronologically. The intention was to present a picture for the general interest audience as much as for the regular volunteers.
Finally, I would like to thank the organisers and participants over the years for their efforts, cooperation and the enjoyment of their company in this unique venture.
John Bull"
The Canal Society is in the process of putting together an archive of material about the Perseverance. If anybody has any of the videos to which John refers, please let the Society know. Thanks
Absolutely one of the coolest machines I’ve ever seen! I’d love to read the history of it. Kind of funny that the operator is dressed in white running that filthy, greasy machine! The crew working the barge it’s on must have nerves of steel, because each time the dredge swings, it looks like it’s going to flip over and sink!
The video on the Basingstoke Canal certainly has awakened many memories. I spent the firs 22 of my 84 years living near the canal in Woking. I spent many hours walking and playing along the towpath from St Johns to Spanton's Bridge. Jumping on many of the sunken barges, tadpoleing and stickleback fishing near the Step Bridge and sliding on the ice when the canal froze. I actually fell through the ice when I was 8 in 1943, near Arthur's Bridge, where I used to go looking for moorhen eggs in the swampy bit, but was rescued by a man walking over the bridge who spotted me in the water. I loved going up towards St Johns and riding the raft across to Slokock's Nursery and playing on the barge nearby and climbing over the dilapidated lock gates further up near St Johns. I'm glad it hasn't been completely abandoned as it was in a pretty poor state when I revisited it some years later, although the locks had been renovated.
What make was the steam excavator.
It appears that the cannel was built on the side of a hill thus providing a place to place the dredge spoils on the down slope side of cannel. Fun to watch the old equipment at work. Well done !
How wonderful is that; using period equipment to return us to the golden era. ❤️
Thanks guys just watched the footage via the ‘Minimal list link’ who are looking for a connection with their boat named Perseverance and this great steam machine!
The invention of the steam engine really opened up a lot of doors lol!
During the 80s i used to operate an excavator between Odium and Farnham stretch of the canal emptying the silt barges , lovely days !!
Reminded me of the 1960s when I drove a 10RB and 19RB on dragline work loading 11cyd tippers with Blue London Clay.
I didn't realise that colour video existed in the 19th Century!!! Joking apart, what a really watchable video, very enjoyable, thank you.
Great video, I enjoyed watching this it took me back to the 80s when I operated tugs, barges, drag lines and a dredger on the Thames Valley gravel pits.
Wow..a steam powered shovel
The crawler clamshell is a museum piece in its own Wright!
What Fun! Certainly wouldn't have to pay me to spend at day on this crew.
I love the lack of health and safety b.s. Despite the sheer volume of paperwork and barriers and HiVis and all the other OSH baggage forced upon us now by the Insurance Industry, its actually no safer now per man-hour worked than it was then!
OMG, they are using a steam powered Dredge! They need to add retractable legs to that thing or they will loose a piece of history. Still if they just put it in a museum would it still work?
Fantastic to have captured this on video. Pity ye couldn't have held on to her. What state is she in now?
Hi in May 2019 she was still at Ellesmere Port but she seems to have been" Lost" by aug 2019
ramsey barber how can she have been lost? I couldn’t fit her down the back of my sofa!
She is still held in the Ellesmere Port boat museum collection, if sadly languishing outside at their Rossfield Rd storage facility.
looks good does the silt get left there and cultivated at a later date
that poor engine needs a flywheel and a timing adjustment :
Why is there steam out at the end??
Mike Coker that’s the exhaust from closing or opening the clam
She now sits at Ellesmere port going rusty. she needs to be worked. Criminal.
Why in God's name are they wearing hard hats ? !!
does any body search through the silt looking for old artifacts
I hope the dredging machine has now been retired. This method of dredging seems to be outdated, time consuming and probably unable to keep up with demand.
It's canal restoration, by volunteers. The dredger is from 1934.