Restoration
Restoration of the Brecon and Abergavenny Canal began in 1961, as part of the creation of the Brecon Beacons National Park, but attention did not focus on the Monmouthshire Canal until 1965, when the Inland Waterways Association formed a South Wales section, after Cwmbran Council wanted to turn the section in their jurisdiction into water gardens and play parks. The group began campaigning for the protection of the remains. Two years later, the Newport (Monmouthshire) Canal Society was formed to push for restoration, and in 1968, anglers formed the Risca, Magor and St Mellons Canal Preservation Society, and the first volunteer work party on the Crumlin Branch took place in March 1969.
The first reconstruction work on the flight was in early 2003, when Cefn Lock was repaired. This enabled a trip-boat to be run on that small section. For a considerable time only the top lock was in water. The pound above Lock 21 (Top lock) suffers from an intermittent water supply. This caused problems for the volunteers of the Mon & Brec Canals Trust, who ran boat trips through the lock on several occasions between 2004 and 2006.
On 23 March 2007, a grant for £700,000 was received from the Heritage Lottery Fund, following a joint presentation by Newport City Council and the Canals Trust. This was to allow restoration of the next four locks at the top of the flight. Work on locks 20, 19, 18 and 17 started in 2010 and is now complete.
The Fourteen Locks Canal and Conference Centre is next to the pound below the top lock and includes exhibits about the canal, changing displays of local art, a meeting room and a tea room. Guided walks along the canal are offered by the centre. In the first three years of operation, the centre attracted 150,000 visitors.
Read more about this topic: Fourteen Locks
Famous quotes containing the word restoration:
“The 1990s, after the reign of terror of academic vandalism, will be a decade of restoration: restoration of meaning, value, beauty, pleasure, and emotion to art and restoration of art to its audience.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“The King [Charles II] after the Restoration accused the poet, Edmund Waller, of having made finer verses in praise of Oliver Cromwell than of himself; to which he agreed, saying, that Fiction was the soul of Poetry.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“I claim that in losing the spinning wheel we lost our left lung. We are, therefore, suffering from galloping consumption. The restoration of the wheel arrests the progress of the fell disease.”
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948)