Turnerwood Open Lock Event

[cheshire~rose]

CRT had their Open Lock event at Turnerwood on The Chesterfield Canal this weekend. No doubt many of you have been to an open lock event before now but this one was a little bit different. 

Some of you may have seen a similar evening spectacular in London earlier this winter (I think at St Pancras?) My understanding is that CRT wanted to trial the evening event at one urban and one rural location and the rural location they chose was Turnerwood on The Chesterfield Canal.  It is an absolutely idyllic location but without a road (let alone a car park) anywhere close by it meant that any visitors had to walk a kilometre up a flight of locks to reach the open event and then another kilometre back down again. Needless to say quite a few people were holding their breath and hoping that people would be prepared to make the effort. 

What many of those people did not count upon was the huge love that the general public have for The Chesterfield Canal and this stretch is incredibly popular for walkers and cyclists so when the sun came out so did the masses and the site was busy with a constant stream of people making the pilgrimage to see what was going on. 

Dawn Rose, Chesterfield Canal Trust's hand build wooden "Cuckoo" boat carried the new lock gates up there last week for CRT. Hugh Henshall, the trip boat acted as a pop up cafe to provide refreshments and Python was on hand to act as warehouse space for the performers during the evening event. 

The entire kilometre length of the towpath was illuminated with flaming torches which was absolutely magical as they cast their reflection on the water. There was something really lovely about the route being lined this way - It was very refreshing that there was not some H&S bod who said it was too risky! Of course it was evident that a great deal of H&S precautions were in place but it was unobtrusive. 

As you came close to the open lock the grassy area on the offside of Stone lock has Swedish torches burning then there were sculptures with flames and fountains above the lock. There were three performances, each lasting around 20 minutes and they rotated so you could arrive at any time and watch all three through. A soleful saxophone playing in an illuminated empty lock, the saxophonist moving through the crowd in the darkness as he played, illuminated only by the flames reflection off the brass of the sax. Some dancers went through their paces, rising from the lock and doing some delicate and elegant lifts. Personally the piece I liked best was the narrator. His name is Dave Stickman Higgins and he read a piece he had written which incorporated a vast amunt of detail about the history of the canal interwoven with details of things about the canal that are current. It was fantastic!

The event was incredibly well attended and I will try and link to some photos of the evening event when I can 

Apart from organising a crew to move the lock gates on Dawn Rose, A crew to move Hugh Henshall and staff a pop up cafe on board for two days and an evening, a crew to move Python a two day trip in either direction including litter picking there and back again Chesterfield canal Trust have also had two trip boats craned out on the unconnected section, blacked them both and back in last week, had a sell out concert at Hollingwood Hub last Wednesday, achieved a 5 star hygiene rating for their pop up cafe at Hollingwood Hub today, got permission from the borough council for the much publicised archeological dig in September, Hollingwood Hub and one of the trip boats has been involved in a pond dipping educational exercise today, Contractors started work on replacing the flood gate close to Chesterfield today, we have been busy taking bookings for Easter trips on the boats and publicising an open event at Retford & Worksop Boat Club on April 1st. 

Oh did I mention the trustee meeting tomorrow and the AGM next week..... and then we only have 35 days to get Python ready for BSS 

Never a dull moment volunteering for Chesterfield Canal trust .... It never fails to impress me the sheer volume of volunteer hours our supporters put in. 

[sandgrown]

I was at Staveley with Helterskelter for the TBF last year, and was very impressed with the number of volunteers putting in countless hours for the restoration of the Chesterfield, looks like you had another great event with lots of local support, lets hope things progress well in the future. keep us up to date with how its going.

[cheshire~rose]

Thank you Sandgrown

Thank you too for being part of a fantastic group of people who totally transformed my understanding of trailboats last year!

I spotted a photo of one of the boats on FB a day or so ago, back in the water after a winter of being trailer bound. Nostalgic thoughts of the wonderful crowd that visited us last year filled my head and I started working out if we can come and see you all at Moira this year - working on that one