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Lapal Canal Photo Album
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NOW ....
The WRG Easter ('97)
Working Party Camp ;
restoring The Leasowes' Overflow Wier, brick by brick.
The
Leasowes' Embankment
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early May '97
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late May '97
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... concrete
progress ! ...
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... until the
rains came ...
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| In the left photo, we see the concrete
footer going into place together with some sections of
the vertical concrete wall [left flank,
middle distance]. In the right photo, the footer
and walling is complete and is being topped-off with
three courses of bricks. Then a fourth row of capping
bricks is visible in the middle distance of the right
flank. These coping bricks are laid as headers so they
straddle the wall bricks and the concrete
back-fill [seen in the right photo, lower
left corner]. The towpath [right
flank] and offside footpath [left
flank] have since been raised to become level with
the coping. |
For
almost a year, we had wall-to-wall water ; so progress
had to be halted ! Then ...
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The Leasowes - Bed Restoration - August
'98 (14 months later)
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In the distant channel [by the JCB and beyond it], we see sand
having been laid on top of puddle clay.
Above this is laid an EPDM membrane that is bonded
sheet-to-sheet (like heavy-duty 'plastic' pond-liner) [black] and above that is Geotextile (a
heavy-duty fabric or 'carpet') [just
visble as grey tell-tale on middle-left by sand-bags].
Both sheet layers are anchored and sealed to the walling
with a second layer of concrete footing [bottom-right].
All is then dressed-off with hoggin (an aggregate of sand
and stones) [foreground] for
aquatic vegetation bonding.
The offside footpath [right
flank] has already been top-dressed with ash while
the towpath [left flank] has been
raised with back-fill clay to a near-coping level in
readiness for its top-dressing
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The
Canal in Selly Oak
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Views from the old
masonry Accommodation Bridge - July '97
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Looking East
towards Harborne Wharf
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Looking West
along Selly Oak Park
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... towards the W&B canal
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... towards the Lapal Tunnel
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Right now, you'd be
hard pressed to navigate a model
narrow-boat through this lot !
But where there's water,
there's hope ?
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THEN ...
Almost
nothing remains of what the following Archive Photos depict ...
The Western Portal of The Lapal Tunnel -
1890 (when Lappal was the preferred spelling)
The entrance is just to the right of the
women-folk, directly below the tree - which still stands today !
The relative sizes of the women-folk and the entrance suggest the
claustrophobic nature of the "drain-pipe" tunnel.
The LCT Logo is based on this
Photo.
Manor Lane Bridge - 1962
- facing 'north' towards The Leasowes.
The half-visible car is in the car-park of
the Black Horse Pub.
