Granny Buttons

Authentic Stenson bridge repair makes me wonder about BW priorities and intentions

Next week BW is giving a press tour of the rebuilding of Hicklins Bridge No. 20, near Stenson on the Trent & Mersey Canal.  This is the accommodation bridge that partly collapsed in October 2008 when a tractor trailer fell off it.

Original BBC Derby report (inc video) of the collapse here.

Canalplan photos by John Howarth (showing Hicklins bridge immediately after the canal had reopened) here.

British Waterways is going to inordinate lengths to restore the 240-year-old bridge, ensuring it looks as authentically 18th Century as possible, as the press release explains:

The restoration of the listed structure is being managed by May Gurney, a national infrastructure services company, and will involve the use of traditional materials and repair techniques. A number of bricks from the collapsed sections were recovered and will be used in the repair along with locally sourced bricks which have been carefully selected to provide an exact match with the original brickwork. Bespoke sandstone copings have also been produced to rebuild the bridge parapet, ensuring the structure is sympathetically restored. 

Lime mortar specialists will also be involved in the project following strict listed building consent guidelines and British Waterways’ own heritage standards. Lime mortar, which is quite different from many modern cement mixes, was originally used to build the bridge during the 1800’s due to its durable and permeable properties.

The rebuilt bridge deck will also benefit from concrete reinforcements to increase load bearing capacity and help prevent a similar collapse from happening again in the future.

Since I live nearby, after the original press visit was cancelled a couple of weeks ago I walked up to the site and chatted to the workers there, including the project manager.

BW isn't bulling. They really are pulling out the stops to restore this bridge to look as familiar as the one Brindley would have known.  And what Brindley wouldn't recognise of the restoration will be hidden.

It's hard for Granny to argue with BW's responsibility as the 'third largest owner of listed structures in the UK'.  Why, this site will be a largely metric-free zone (!) and the result will be testament to the marriage of industrial archaeology with modern civil engineering.

(The project manager told me he thought it would be much easier and cheaper to dismantle the whole thing and rebuild it from scratch.  But his orders are to leave as much as possible of the original structure in place and patch it up.  He also marvelled at how a single layer of bricks could have borne all the agricultural traffic over the years, and pondered over the extra reinforcing that will have to be incorporated invisibly.)

And yet... compare this bridge rebuild with another one needed right now on the Grantham Canal.  ('Mission impassable: the Highways Agency threat that could ruin the Grantham Canal restoration').  Is this really the right priority for the waterways?

The full restoration of the Grantham Canal is under threat because BW failed to get representation at the planning stage for a canal bridge on an approach road to the new A46 road.  They cited shortage of money.   The extra cost of the Grantham bridge might be £500,000 now, or an impossible £10million in five years time. 

In the case of Hicklins Bridge I can't help feeling that spending so much money on repairing such a minor feature is an extravagance. The blunt truth is that across the canal network there are hundreds of such traditional Georgian accommodation bridges crumbling in the middle of nowhere, many of them far prettier and in more delightful settings. And this particular bridge, set in an s-bend of the canal, is only visible from a furlong away, if that.

See also: Overcrowded, crumbling canals (Sept 2008, just a month before the collapse of Hicklins Bridge No.20). 

Here's the bridge on Google Maps, pre-collapse:

View Larger Map

If you look closely at what this bridge was like BEFORE the collapse (see the uncollapsed side below), you'll wonder why it's been singled out for such princely treatment.  Like many other it's been patched roughly and economically over the years - for example the modern brickwork and rough, round cement coping on top.

What was the cheapest option for replacing the bridge?  I mean, one that kept it stable for tractor traffic, perhaps just using concrete beams.  BW haven't said.  Perhaps its because they want you to praise the 'authenticity' of the restoration, and a much cheaper modern option, with money left over, would detract from the praise.

And yet there may be deft method in this madness.  It might be that BW are using this bridge as a 'poster boy' for heritage - to hold it up as an example of how much it costs to maintain all these listed original canal structures. 

This extravagant restoration might just be a crafty manoeuvre by British Waterways to explain to its paymasters why it needs more money.

The grimness of being 'Granny'

My alter-ego or nom-de-clef is 'granny', but most people in the British Isles tend to have a 'nan', 'nanny' or a 'grandma'. 

In  the case of 'nan' it's obviously a class thing.  If you were rich enough you employed a separate nanny, and if you weren't, your grandmother looked after you.

I spent my early years abroad (daddy was a colonial policeman) so had a privileged upbringing that inevitably included a hired nanny, of 'a darker complexion' as we used to say.  To call someone 'black' was pretty rude in our circles, and I'm still uncomfortable with it today.

My earliest and fondest memory is of Negesti, an Eritraean woman whose native tongue was Italian, Italy being the colonial power in her childhood.  She used to call me 'brutto', which means 'ugly'.  She was looking after me, aged two or three, when I accidentally fell downstairs and fractured my skull. 

(This could account for some of my character.  I had an EEG at fourteen which suggested a slight brain abnormality.) 

Dear Negesti, lovely lady, lovely nanny. I have vague memories of her looming large over me at bedtime, telling me stories that I couldn't understand, but that could just be my lack of English as much as hers.

I was reminded of this by the new animated short film that's been nominated for an Oscar: Granny O'Grimm.

It's not so much the film or the story that caught my eye, as the word 'Granny'.  Sometimes I feel obliged to apologise that my boat's not called 'Nan Buttons', so it's good to see the 'G' word get some public traction.

Nevertheless, once I'm past the Granny bit, this film is delightful, and pretty sinister.  It's beautifully written and spookily spoken by Irish comedienne Kathleen O'Rourke, and has been perceptively animated by Brown Bag Films. 

In particular, I love how the '3D rendering' of Granny - while she tells the tale - contrasts with the '2D traditional drawn' look of the tale she tells.  This highlights Granny's own reality. 

Furthermore, the animation really helps convey both her infirmity and weight.  Showing 'weight' is a very hard thing to do in computer animation.  Characters such as Shrek seem to float along, as if on the moon.  Granny thumps, and you can feel the gravity as she shifts the chair to sit in it. 

After you've watched the original film, take a look at Granny's reaction to the Oscar nomination. 

To finish this post I looked for something on Kathleen O'Rourke.  And surprisingly there's very little on her.  The best I found was this YouTube video of her doing standup three or four years ago.  It's fairly edgy stuff in places, like a Hibernian Sarah Silverman.)

[Thanks to Ed Fox's tweet for alerting me to this]

Highlights of swan lost by my cheaper camera

One of the frustrations of a cheaper digital camera is its inability to respond to 'difficult' exposure situations.

For example, a couple of weeks ago the ice at Stone was defrosting following overnight rain.  The canal outside Joule's old brewery had a deceptive film of water which had seduced unsuspecting swans to land, and they were bemused at this 'solid water', waddling and sliding ungracefully around the nearby narrowboats.

The sun was low but bright in a clear blue sky, and when I snatched a few photographs I had no time to check the exposure settings. 

The result was burned-out highlights of the swan's brilliant white features, and they are gone for good.   A more expensive camera would likely not have been confounded by such a difficult subject.

Photographer Ken Rockwell has loads of good tips on such problems on his website.  He describes countering this problem on the page 'Adding dynamic range to any digital camera'.

Photos of locked boatyard at Jericho

It's 1am, I'm still not feeling great, and I nearly coughed up my supper tonight.  I've got to do another post before bed, so that you've got something to read tomorrow.  How to start?

One way is to set to work on something that annoys me.  Heaven knows the supply of irritatium in the universe is infinite.

Another is to browse back through all the recent blog posts of other boaters.   Using Google Reader I 'star' the ones I like and want to refer to later. Truth is, I never get around to commenting on those; wish I did.

A third way is to browse through my photos and see if one of them sets me off on a train of thought.  I often save photos to the desktop when I think the subject will surface again. 

I'll browse these until I find one...

Stop! Yes, here's one: 

These were the padlocked gates of the Castle Mill boatyard in Jericho, Oxford, in the summer of 2006, shortly after the users were evicted. 

Looking back on it, these photos were quite timely and evocative of the site.  I should have made them available earlier. 

The site remains shuttered and unused since the planning for developing it into canalside apartments fell through a couple of years ago.  The local boat-dwellers and their supporters are still hoping for a return to the site following the collapse of the developers in the recession.  It really is a sorry tale.

See, most recently, 'Buy boatyard call to council', where a group of them are shown looking miserable around these gates.  (I don't know about you, but every time I see a MOG* photo like this, I want the glum-faced people to lose, I just will them to lose, I can't help myself!)

I remember, years ago when I was new to boating, trying to sleep one summer under the tall tubular bell chimes of St Barnabas Church, almost counting the hours until the next chime,  and silently cursing myself to sleep.

This lovely little  church really is the centrepiece of the site, and whatever happens here must grant the towpath walker a view of it. It has its own little website - www.sbarnabas.org.uk - from where you can download a free 11-page booklet about the church and its history (here).

Talking of history, there's a whole page about 'St Barnabas in literature' - from the sublime (Thomas Hardy) to the poetic (John Betjeman) to the prosaic (Joanna Trollope).

The Jericho Living Heritage Trust describes:

One of the most devastating effects of the proposed boatyard development would be the loss of St Barnabas Church’s unencumbered visual impact across Jericho and beyond. A spokesman for the developers was rash enough to let slip that he regarded St Barnabas' Church as "an anomaly."

This is a strikingly unsympathetic way of describing one of the most significant buildings in the Jericho quarter; surely Oxford deserves a development which shows greater cultural and environmental awareness than this?

I've just spent an hour rambling; sorry.  But at least you've got something to read during your lunch hour.

[* What I call 'Miserable Old Git' photos - the staple of local newspapers when running stories of put-upon people with something to complain about]

I'm still alive, but dying

Oh! I'm so ill, I'm dying. I think it's swine flue.

Cough.

Cough, cough cough-co-cough.  Retch.

Here's a filler blog post, just to reassure you I'm not dead. Yet.

The autumn before last, some wag painted lock mooring bollards to look like redcap toadstools.   Ha ha.  It could almost have been Banksy, couldn't it?

It served as entertainment for boaters, runners and all towpath users - even the four ladies perambulating their children had a jolly good chuckle.  

Somewhere I have a picture of this particular  bollard from below.  I'll fish it out for you.

Actually, this was likely a publicity stunt by BW London.  Certainly their press release at the time suggested as much.

Anyway, one interesting thing is you can actually JUST see these bollards from space, if you zoom in.  I've  centred the map here on the bollard in the picture.

View Larger Map

Sorry for the inconsequential nature of this post.  It's just filler. I hate doing fillers almost as much as I hate blank days.

Oh, I'm dying, coughcough, COUGH.  Khkhretch. Might stay in bed all tomorrow.

Crack willow worry for No Worries

Tree falls on canal couple’s home - Shropshire Star

Liveaboard boaters Bernard & Barbara Richardson were lucky to be away from their boat No Worries last Friday when they got a call from British Waterways telling them that a huge willow tree had fallen - and they needed to make plans for a new home.

Look on the bright side implied by the boat's 'be happy' name: If they've got a wood stove they needn't be short of fuel for the rest of the year.  All they need now is a new boat to go with the salvaged stove. 

But think what it must be like if you are actually aboard when it happens.  It must feel like the end of the world's happening, or at least like an earthquake.  

At least two other sets of boaters endured the fright of falling willows while they were inside, within days of each other in 2004.   See my posts:

The sound of willow on beech

Oops! Another tree falls on a narrowboat, this time at Penkridge

The former features the best pun I've ever put in a headline.  (Thanks in advance for the compliment, dear reader.  Blush.)

I asked BW's local office a few questions about this particular accident, including why it fell, which trees are more likely than others to fall in this way, if a non-expert can get any clues as to whether a tree's about to fall, etc:

The tree fell unexpectedly as a result of the adverse weather conditions we have been experiencing over the last few weeks.

Willow trees - especially the type called Crack Willow - are prone to act in this way.  British Waterways has a dynamic management system that monitors all trees along the canal.  Recent adverse weather conditions will be taken into account in the next scheduled tree survey.

Bearing in mind my recent comments about 'too many trees in the landscape', I also asked if there were environmental, scientific or aesthetic reasons to prevent BW cutting trees such as these BEFORE they grew into an immediate threat.

Silly question, of course there are.  Loads of reasons: 

Mature trees offer a wide range of biodiversity and landscape benefits and as such are a vital part of the waterway scene... British Waterways ... employs certified arboriculturalists to carry out our surveys...

Tree management is subject to a range of regulations including Conservation Areas, designated wildlife sites such as SSSI, and Scheduled Ancient Monument sites.

Many wooded areas by canals are fully mature – dating back decades or even centuries – and so it would not be appropriate to clear fell because of the wider benefits discussed above.

Call me nervous, but from now on I can't help feel a little nervous each time I tie up near a Crack Willow.  The Woodland Trust says:

Crack willow is aptly named, not only due to the twigs making a 'cracking' noise when broken but also because old trees often develop a large crack in their trunk and are prone to collapse.

Stone in the snow, full moon and yellow streetlights

 

This weekend's offered us the brightest and best full moon for ages.  So, although I was really snug and warm on Granny on Saturday night at Stone, I forced myself out at midnight to try and catch some of that light.

Although the snow and ice had largely melted last week, it started to freeze and sleet again on Saturday night as soon as I stepped off the boat.

I forced myself to freeze in the name of art.  Actually it's not that hard when the snow is fresh on the ground and there are no footsteps to spoil the view.

It's very frustrating for me, though. I know a bad workman blames his tools, but I could do so much more with a more advanced camera than the basic Nikon D60 and flimsy tripod that are all I can afford.

(Elephantine memories might remember that four weeks ago I slipped in the snow at Harecastle Tunnel and broke a lens.   In fact I dug out an older lens I was using for another camera, and while it isn't in alignment and the results aren't sharp, it does the job.)

The biggest hurdle to good moonlit photography is modern street lighting.  The moon itself is a neutral grey, and casts a subdued and reflected sunlight that is low enough to allow local lighting to have its own effect on a landscape.

However, modern monochromatic yellow sodium streetlight muscles in on townscapes and not only stamps its own dreary vivid colour on scenes, but drowns out more characterful lights nearby.

For example, capturing the old horse tunnel at Newcastle Road Lock (left) was a great challenge, with two streetlamps, left and right, flooding the brick walls with their bright yellow.

I managed to recover some of the detail in the shadowed parts by 'painting' the scene with my torch.  You can see the faint, remaining effect of the full moon in a bluish square on the ground on the bottom right of the picture.

Down by the boatyard lock, I was captivated by the fresh powdering of snow, which gave a simplified cleanliness to the scene.  But that infernal sodium glow was everywhere down there.

On the way back to the boat, close to 3am, I slipped on snow, and fell once again on my tripod and camera (as I did earlier this month.  Damn!  At least the camera and backup lens didn't break this time, and the tripod seemed unbent, although I'm sure the lens is now even more out of alignment.

But it makes me realise that even if I could afford the £2,500 camera and lens I wanted, I couldn't really afford to take them out on midnight prowls.  I must learn to consider my equipment as disposable.

What size are my pictures?

Cap'n Ahab of Wand'ring Bark asks a technical question:

I am trying to work out the optimum size of image to post on the blog and notice that you seem to use a max side length of 800 - 1200 ish.

What do you use as a rule of thumb?

Nowadays I tend to standardise the size of the 'popout' picture  at 1200 pixels wide or 800 pixels high - or both.  

This is so that pictures will at least fill a typical visitor's screen, either for viewing, or for use as a wallpaper.   It's increased over the years.  When I started in 2003 the typical popout was a paltry 640 wide, a limitation of the early version of Typepad.  Hardly worth a popout, really.

Screen resolutions have crept up over the years, and Google Analytics tell me that a surprising number of my visitors have quite high screen resolutions.   Here are the ten main screen resolutions of visitors to Granny Buttons:

1. 1024x768   25.87% 2. 1280x800   22.13% 3. 1280x1024   12.95% 4. 1440x900   8.46% 5. 1680x1050   5.81% 6. 1366x768   4.81% 7. 1920x1200   2.19% 8. 1152x864   2.04% 9. 800x600   1.65% 10. 1024x600   1.37%

However, 1200 pixels wide is at the point where file sizes do start to mushroom, and I might at some stage scale it back.

But all this is for screen viewing, not printout, and screens are mostly made for 'landscape' viewing.  So I still set 'portrait' images at 800 high, making the width typically under 600 wide.

All this might change with the likely uptake of 'tablet' computers like the new Apple iPad.  It'll soon be easy enough to just turn a tablet screen around in your hands when you meet a portrait picture.

For example, here's an iPad-ready picture.  The scene is looking out of the Newcastle Road Lock horse tunnel at Stone, on the Trend & Mersey.  The curious lighting is because I photographed it last night in the full moon around 1am.

If you click on it, it'll enlarge to a satisfying full 1200 pixels 'high'.  You only need to turn your new tablet screen around on your lap to see it properly. 

If you are on a normal computer, you'll just have to stand up and lift up your monitor and rotate it and curse me, sorry.