Graving Dock

Restoration of the Graving Dock Lock

The Graving Dock Lock was a dry dock used for the repair and maintenance of barges. It is situated about half a mile south of the canal terminus at Ventiford basin. Restoration work involved the partial dismantling of the massive lock masonry, clearing it of tree roots and repointing. A boiler used in the process of bending wooden boards has been reinstalled into its housing. Volunteers from the Waterways Recovery Group spent two weeks carrying out the work. They are all members of the Inland Waterways Association and give of their free time to restore old canals all over the country. The work was funded by a grant to enable the restoration of this nationally unique and important canal structure.

During  October  2016  we  contracted  a  large  machine  to  dredge  the  silt  from  the  bottom  of  Graving  Dock  Lock  and  to  remove some  large  tree  roots  from  the  area  of  the  south western block wall.  Castleford  Engineering  is  a  local  firm  from  Liverton  who  specialise  in water  based  civils  work  and  helped  us  last  year  with  the  reconstruction  of  the  lock  walls.  Local  mason  Davin  Foster  from Bishopsteignton  trades  as  the  Rural  Craftsman and  was  also  on  hand  to  lend  his  experience  in  rebuilding  the  weir.  Davin reinstated the lock walls last year and regrouted the bed of the graving dock earlier this year. The works used the last of the funds we won in a public vote from the Tesco ‘Bags of Help’ scheme.