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Somerset Coal Canal Photographic Survey - complementing an access survey
Somerset Coal Canal Photographic Survey - how it happened
Somerset Coal Canal Photographic Survey - future possibilities
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Somerset Coal Canal Photographic Survey - how it happened
Location: Bath and NE Somerset
Martin Leathwood has lived in the Thornbury area for thirty years, quite a long way from the coal canal with which he has been involved for about five years:
"The way the project operated was that we put publicity around and had two meetings for anybody who was interested in taking pictures of the canal and recording what the canal meant to them in their community. There’s one chap in our council who’s a real expert on the canal, and he talked to these groups, generating a good deal of enthusiasm.
About 40 to 50 people, including quite a few schoolchildren, were involved in taking the photographs, which took two or three months. We gave them all participants disposable cameras to keep costs down. The schoolchildren who took part were all very enthusiastic, and of course they took their parents to see the displays.
After the pictures were developed there were two editing meetings where the best pictures were selected by the photographers. Then all the photographs were made into a display of six boards, each about 4 by 2 feet, including a diagrammatic map of the canal and information about a whole raft of different things - the wildlife, the structures, geology, access and interpretation.
We had an opening exhibition down at Radstock Museum, which is on one of the lines of the canal, and then the exhibition toured around a number of villages and other locations in the area. Writhlington School, a secondary school near Radstock, had taken part in the photographic survey and produced some really good ideas for future projects so the display was in their library for three or four weeks
I wasn’t directly involved with any of the camera work, but I enjoyed moving the exhibition around and meeting people living along the canal who had become enthusiastic.
It was really helpful that the LHI team were flexible about renegotiating how the money was used, and extending the deadline when things took a bit longer than expected. We hadn't spent our contingency money, and I approached the LHI with the suggestion that we used the money to produce another full size copy of the display, which is now on permanent display at the BrassKnocker Centre by the Dundas Aqueduct , south of Bath on the Kennet and Avon canal.
The LHI plaque is on the Brass Knocker Centre, at the only stretch - about 100 metres !! - of the Somerset Canal Canal (which leads out from the Kennet and Avon) that still has water in it. Its now used as a marina for narrowboats, the owner has an old barn where he had a tea room and a small exhibition, and our display is now there with some other bits and pieces about the coal canal. We’ve also got a half-size copy of the display that I hope will eventually go in the Bath at Work Museum."
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