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Your Help Is Requested - The Last Cuckoo Project


cheshire~rose

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Please would the good members of this forum help Chesterfield Canal Trust to unlock £10K of funding for this project?

 

We are not asking for your money (for once!) just a moment or two for you to cast your vote.

 

 

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"The Last Cuckoo Project is a community history and archaeological project with a focus on the Chesterfield Canal at Bellhouse Lane, Staveley. The canal basin, now a small, insignificant patch of overgrown wasteland was once a thriving industrial complex with wharves, tramways, gas works and a lost, unique Chesterfield Canal narrowboat (cuckoo).
The map record and tales of a buried cuckoo mark Bellhouse Lane basin as an important and interesting place worthy of archaeological investigation in order to document, record and understand fully the function of this once thriving industrial complex.
Spring 2017 The Canal Trust proposes to undertake a detailed analytical study of the history of the area, with the intention of involving the whole community. Young, old, able bodied, disadvantaged and disability. Collating maps, Chesterfield Canal Company data, historic photographs and collecting and compiling oral histories.
August 2017 (2 weeks) The excavation and recording of the basin area and the locating of the cuckoo would make for an exciting community project. A project that will involve the Chesterfield Canal Trust and will extend invitation to local history groups, schools, scouts, disability groups, canal trust members, waterways organisations and the public in general. Participants would be supervised, educated and trained by a small team of professional archaeologists.


The project would serve a number of project goals:
• To provide an interesting, engaging experience for all members of the local community.
• Provide an educational experience for the community’s young people, by the inclusion of scout groups and school age children.
• Provide training opportunities for all members of the community.
• Provide experience for students of history and archaeology and a very specific opportunity for students of maritime archaeology.
• Provide opportunity for a detailed study of (possibly) the last original Cuckoo, its construction and traces of cargo carried.
• The excavation would be another chapter in the basin’s story and the story of the excavation could be included on future interpretation boards. Publicising the event within local and national media would generate interest and attract new members to the Chesterfield Canal Trust. It would also raise public awareness of the canal and its environs, helping to increase visitor numbers.
• Interesting artefacts would be conserved for display and educational purposes.

 

Why now? With the trust's rebuilding work at Staveley Town Basin nearing completion and HS2’s pending announcement of its chosen route and intentions not to obstruct the restoration means that the canal trust will have the green light to continue restoration east along the canal. This next phase of restoration will not reinstate the old Bellhouse Lane Basin.
“Marked changes in ground level caused by mining subsidence under the Doe Lea Valley (and recent house building immediately adjacent to the site) preclude effective reuse of the basin site and canal arm as originally configured. The alternative proposed here diverts the canal track slightly north of its original line” Next Navigation West: Restoration of the Chesterfield Canal from Staveley to Killamarsh.
Sadly, the basin will be lost under a car park.

 


We need £10,000 to fund our project. Our main costs will be:
• The cost of the archaeological lead (a two-week excavation would require approximately 28 days of the archaeologist's time including preparation works, the excavation itself, post-excavation work and report writing).
• Machine digger and driver
• Insurance
• Tools and PPE
• Conservation costs

Please vote for our project and help us secure the funds we need to build an amazing, educational and exciting community event in Staveley!"

 

You can vote by following this link:

 

https://www.avivacommunityfund.co.uk/voting/project/view/16-2681#5

 

You will be required to register with Aviva and once you have done so you will have 10 votes you can cast among the projects as you see fit.

 

Those of you who are not familar with the area may not realise the incredible impact the restoration of the canal has had in the local community. It has long been a very run down former mining area and the strength of local feeling supporting the restoration of the canal is immense. Where there was once an open cast mine and a chemical works there is now a canal with children in kayaks, fishermen, walkers, cyclists and people choosing to visit the pretty lock side cafe to enjoy their amenity. If this funding came to The Chesterfield it would be a fantastic boost to the community and it would involve the younger generation in actively discovering the history that is under their feet.

 

There are several eye witness accounts that there is at least one Cuckoo boat that was buried when the basin was filled in along with a wealth of other important heritage from a working canal wharf and we want to find it.

 

There is a video about the project here:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGJWgbVuNr0

 

A Facebook page about it here:

 

https://www.facebook.com/events/1232428583496222/

 

One last request - please can you help keep this post bumped up by writing a comment once you have voted

 

Thank you so much!

 

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Hi guys, thank you for taking the time to vote!

 

We need to keep the momentum going, so if you haven't yet cast your vote please please help us with this unique community project and gives us your votes.

 

https://www.avivacom.../view/16-2681#5

 

Thanks again!

 

Andy Robinson

 

Coordinator of Community Archaeology for the Chesterfield Canal Trust

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Doing it now.

 

I lived on Wharf Lane in Staveley for vitually all of the 1970s. At that time the basin was still reached along Wharf Lane which had a bridge over the railway. Always an interesting area to walk around.

 

It is thought that the railway was built over an early canal arm to Ireland Colliery.

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Hi guys, thanks again for taking the time to vote!



We need to keep the momentum going, so if you haven't yet cast your vote please please help us with this unique community project and gives us your votes.



https://www.avivacom.../view/16-2681#5



Thanks Grebe not heard the canal arm to Ireland Colliery theory before! Interesting stuff.



Thanks again!



Andy Robinson



Coordinator of Community Archaeology for the Chesterfield Canal Trust


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My goodness thank you everyone who has voted. was so busy yesterday I did not get a chance to log in but I am really thrilled so many of you have got behind this and are showing your support. I knew I could rely on you all

 

 

Please keep up the momentum, please get your family, friends and colleagues to vote too. If each of you who has already voted could encourage one other to gve their 10 votes then it would add another 170 votes....

 

If you all got 10 friends to vote then t's +1700

 

Thank you all

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