Ongoing work at Wappenshall Wharf

Shropshire Star

The canal wharf at Wappenshall in Telford is considered to be one of the most significant in the history of inland waterways in England. Completed in 1797, the stunning pair of warehouses is now owned by Telford & Wrekin Council and the Shrewsbury and Newport Canals Trust, who have spent the last few years renovating the buildings. The larger of the two buildings will eventually be a visitor centre, while the smaller warehouse will feature a café set to open this year. Funds raised by the café will go into the continued renovation and preservation of the historic wharf.

Transcript

00:00 The Shrewsbury and Newport Canals Trust was formed in the year 2000, so we're just in our 23rd year

00:06 now, so quite young still really. The 24 and three-quarter miles of these two canals we have

00:13 set as a target to restore them all, so that we can get from the junction at Norbury Junction

00:21 all the way through Newport, right the way through to here and onward and into the county town of

00:27 Shrewsbury. Opening up all of those sections of canal is going to take some time and a lot of

00:33 money, but this particular canal is such an important canal from a heritage point of view

00:40 because it had so much involvement with Thomas Telford. After we got a town named after him,

00:47 but there's not a great deal else. Larger building here will pay homage to Thomas Telford,

00:53 and we're working with our partners down at Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Their Telford

00:58 collection, which is a massive amount of information that was collected back in 2007,

01:04 they have nowhere to display. We will do a rolling display through that building, and there will be a

01:11 fantastic visitor centre here, and it will be a tremendously interesting place to come, and then

01:16 when you've had a good look you can come and have something nice to eat in our cafe. That we will

01:21 then use to generate further funds to do the rest of the site and to open up some sections of the

01:28 canal as well from there on in. It's been a lot of work. The volunteers here have been absolutely

01:33 incredible working in all weathers. We've got ex-builders, we've got ex-accountants, we've got a

01:40 firefighter, we've got a jockey. They come from all walks of life, and I think that for somebody

01:47 like me, I worked for the MOD behind a desk for many a year, and being able to get out and do

01:53 something physical and restore something that is so important as part of our heritage, daily I stand

02:00 back and look at these things and think Thomas Telford must have been some kind of guy. He would

02:04 be applauding what we're doing here I'm sure, to repurpose these buildings for another couple of

02:10 hundred years.

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