Our wharf

Our wharf at Llangattock opened to visitors in 2016. We designed it to provide space for us to build and maintain our boats, and to offer a warm welcome and excellent facilities for our customers. We moved here from a much smaller wharf at Llanfoist, which is where you'll find our holiday cottages.

The new wharf is in a gorgeous position, tucked under the Llangattock mountain escarpment, with views towards the delightful market town of Crickhowell, which is a 20-minute stroll away. Situated at roughly the mid-point of the canal, it is just 15 miles from the northern end of the canal, making Brecon an achievable destination for boating customers on a short break.

Planning and designing our new wharf was an exciting project - to bring together all our workshops and customer facilities under one roof. There are spacious moorings for our growing number of narrowboats, and customers can see our team hard at work, planning and building the newest boats for our fleet.

We are grateful to the vast army of contractors and friends (especially Alan from the bank) that has made this dream possible.

Read the story of our new wharf, below.

Gallery

28/8/14: Work starts with Sarah and Alasdair cutting the first sod. The project is divided into 5 phases: (1) Excavation of the building and docking bay (2) Canal drainage and connection of the docking bay (3) Building the base and services (4) Building construction (5) Fit out / electrics / heating / finishing touches
30/8/14: To get started we have to create a new entrance off Hillside Road, and set up site facilities: porta-cabins to house the workshops, loos and space for the important tea breaks.
11/9/14: After clearing of a few canal side saplings and shrubs work begins levelling the site and digging out the docking bay.
11/9/14: Tasks 1 and 2 have tight time constraints as the canal can be drained only between Nov and mid-Dec, as it is open again for Christmas. So from mid-Aug to Nov we have to construct the docking bay to within 10 feet of the canal edge - the minimum bank width CRT insisted we left to prevent water filling the docking bay accidentally!
26/9/14: Once the site was levelled, a solid base is formed and a drainage channel dug to maintain a dry site.
3/10/14: Foundation strips are laid to provide a working platform for the formation of the reinforced dockside concrete walls.
10/10/14: The knees of the retaining dock side walls are prepared with steel reinforcement bar and plywood shuttering.
16/10/14: Steel shutters are lifted in and bolted together to retain the concrete upper walls.
29/10/14: Nothing like toys for the boys! A large pump spreads 100mm of concrete across the docking bay floor. For the technically-minded, under the concrete there is 250mm stone, tensar TX 160 matting, another 100mm of T1 stone, then the liner sandwiched between layers of poly-felt.
03/11/14: Phase 1 completed a day ahead of deadline. The concrete docking bay is complete to within 10 feet of canal. Now we are ready to de-water the canal, as soon as the tourism season ends.
4/11/14: While the contractors are waiting to drain the canal, they continue to level the area where our large boathouse is to be built. After adding stone and terram matting, a huge steel re-enforced mesh is laid over the area with a ring beam around the outside to take the additional loadings of the building’s steel pillars.
4/11/14: The slip way is formed between two reinforced concrete walls. Two layers of wire mesh to guard against cracking when lifting out a 20 ton canal boat.
5/11/14: The building floor is now ready for concreting and power floating. Now this was all about planning. The excellent local team of sub-contractors knew that the concrete would take a minimum of 24 hours to harden and that to get a perfect level finish it would have to be “polished” throughout the night.
5/11/14: So, in comes the hired flood lighting.
5/11/14: And the night shift sets about polishing the concrete using two power polishers, like being at the fair.
5/11/14: Before we can drain the 0.4 mile section of canal between bridges 113 and 114, we have to get a specialist company in to de-fish the section. This is achieved with nets and electro-stunning. All the fish in this section were caught and transferred to the remaining sections of canal that were full of water.
5/11/14: There's lots going on. Not only are we busy de-fishing and pouring vast amounts of concrete into the building base, but we're also starting to remove the canal bank. This truly is a momentous day!
14/11/14: Once the canal is drained, temporary dams are placed either side of our docking bay. Then begins the huge task of removing the silt from the canal bed.
18/11/14: This picture shows the scale of the project. In the distance, there's a digger clearing silt from the canal in front of our docking bay. The concrete square to the right of the photograph is the base of our new boathouse.
18/11/14: Now that the canal is completely drained and the silt removed, a hard core base is added to form the foundations of the new canal bed. Steel work for the docking bay is extended to form an entrance arc.
2/12/2014: A complicated concrete beam has to be constructed across the canal to form a joint between the new concrete-lined canal bed and the old clay-lined canal. This is a toothed beam into which puddled clay will be compressed to form the seal.
5/12/14: CRT insisted that our docking bay should continue across the canal and conclude with a wall on the towpath side. This wall has two functions: to hold the liner in place, and to prevent wash damage when canal boats enter/leave our dock. A huge welded liner is spread across the entire site.
5/12/14: Meanwhile, another team is preparing all the services to the site..... water and electricity (both to the boathouse and the moored boats), telecoms, CCTV ducting and jet wash ducting.
10/12/14: A small sideline project is the task of retrieving our canal boat trailer out of storage, and transporting it to the new site over the canal bridge.
10/12/14: The trailer is wider than both the canal bridge and our entrance so it has to be brought on site before we erect the fences and gates.
15/12/14: With the concrete now poured right across the base of the canal, and the “wash way” wall built, the final job before re-filling the canal is to fix the timber edging around the bay.
15/12/14: We are getting very close to refilling the canal, in readiness for it to re-open for the Christmas period.
19/12/14: D-day. The two temporary dams are removed, and the stop boards at bridges 113 and 114 are removed a plank at a time, to allow canal water to flow into our new dock.
19/12/14: Surprisingly, it does not take long for the canal water to fill our new dock. Even more remarkable, the water levels within the dock are checked and compared to what we'd planned. They are spot on!
12/1/15: After the Christmas break, work starts again on finishing the services and general landscaping of the site.
20/1/15: As the site is not connected to the main foul drainage, we need to install a very large holding tank, which will have to be pumped out quite regularly. Burying this tank is not as easy as originally thought.
20/1/15: The ground water level is high, so the holding tank has to be filled with water and then strapped down to foundation bolts to stop it floating out when empty.
20/1/15: Finally, we pour a vast quantity of concrete around the holding tank, to make absolutely sure it does not move.
2/2/15: No site is perfect, and the one drawback of our new location is the narrow canal bridge linking us to Llangattock village. However, we manage to carefully squeeze an articulated lorry over it.
12/2/15: While work continues around the building site, we start building the new stone wall at the entrance off Hillside Road. This will have both vehicle and pedestrian gates fitted.
14/2/15: Work continues burying the telecoms line and the water main.
14/2/15: Elsewhere on the site, we're forming the car park.
17/3/15: When negotiating the purchase of the land we agreed that all the spoil from the site could, with permission from Natural Resources Wales, be spread over the remaining field. Now we have to leave it to dry out before final de-stoning, rolling and seeding.
8/4/15: Another major part of the project is working with Western Power to obtain a 3-phase power supply from the nearest supply, two fields away from our site. They have had to upgrade both the supply from Llangattock and a local transformer. Now they are trenching through our neighbour's field and moling under the road to reach our site.
8/4/15: The large electricity cable is pulled through the ducting that we had previously installed down the length of our new drive, finally reaching our boathouse.
8/4/15: All is going to plan. In fact, the power connection to our site is made in the same week that the contractors start to fit out the building internals.
9/4/15: The beginning of Phase 4 and the arrival of the steel building. Made by Martin, of local firm Meyrick and Powell, the steels are huge - 450mm sections with a span of 22 metres.
9/4/15: With the aid of two teleporters, it's amazing how quickly the steel structure goes up.
18/4/15: The frame is up and we're ready for the insulated roof sheets.
22/4/15: We make wonderful use of the April sunshine, by starting to lay the decking around the slipway. This will become a delightful area for customers to sit, enjoy a coffee and take in the view, before having their boat handover and cruising off on holiday.
22/4/15: It's also a lovely spot for a quiet tea break.
29/4/15: As the roofing sheets are being bolted to the bright steel “Z” purlins, the carpenters are busy studding out the external walls and dividing off the workshops.
1/5/15: Phase 4 is complete. Our building is water tight with just a little fitting out to do!
6/5/15: It’s so pleasing when things turn out right. When we submitted the planning application, we were confident that the building would be low profile and mostly hidden by the remaining field. This is the actual building.
6/5/15: And this is the artist’s impression that we submitted to the planners. Just check out how close we were…
11/5/15: Time for an inspection of the new site by our team. The decking is complete, and the building is partly clad in locally sourced wainey edged larch, which will age beautifully.
26/5/15: Spring has been incredibly warm and dry so the spoil which we spread on the field has dried more quickly than expected.
26/5/15: We appoint another local contractor to level the field, rake out all the large stones, add a little drainage, and spread the saved top soil over the entire field.
26/5/15: Once rolled, the field is fertilised with nitrogen and seeded with a mixture of grass and clover.
28/5/15: We're making excellent progress cladding the building.
28/5/15: Inside, there's lots going on, too.
18/6/15: What a wonderful sunny day, and our boathouse is very nearly finished.
23/6/15: In the glorious early summer sunshine, we start fencing our boundary and adding the entrance gates.
23/6/15: It's all starting to come together, and we're really pleased with the way things are looking.
29/6/15: This is the part of the project which we are not looking forward to - moving out of the rented industrial unit which we have occupied since purchasing a small carpentry business five years ago. It's going to be a physical challenge and a very emotional time for our carpenter, Jeff.
29/6/15: In came a professional lifting contractor, loaded up their lorry but failed to get across the narrow canal bridge at Llangattock. Back we came, called a local farmer with tractor and trailer, and, embarrassingly, had to swap the heavy machines over from the contractor's lorry to the farmer's trailer.
2/7/15: It's been a very significant day for our carpenter, Jeff who has worked in this industrial unit for 35 years. He became part of our team when we purchased the carpentry business, and he swapped from making doors and windows to building canal boat interiors. Sarah baked one of her super cakes to mark the occasion.
2/7/15: After moving all the machinery, we had the unenviable task of cleaning out 35 years of dust. Then, Jeff locked up the unit for one last time.
8/7/15: With our new boathouse very nearly finished, it's time for another inspection by the team.
16/7/15: It wasn’t long before our narrowboats realised this was going to be their new home. We've spotted several customers mooring alongside our new towpath wall and enjoying the views.
Aug - Oct: We've installed heating and plumbing, and kitted out our various stores for laundry, crockery, cleaning materials, boat cleaning equipment and spares. During this winter we'll move all the business contents from Llanfoist Wharf to our new boathouse, to be fully operational for 18 March 2016.
Everything is ready for our fleet of boats to arrive, now that the 2015 holidays have ended. We'll soon be starting our programme of winter maintenance, whereby one boat will be trailed out of the water via our slipway every Monday morning for a week's service. More about this on our blog in coming weeks.

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