Preserving the past, stone by stone

When you touch the stone, brick, clay and lime mortar of our canals you can feel the layers of history behind them. Today, Rachael Morgan still uses these time-honoured materials to give canals a future as she explains:

“I’ve always lived quite close to the canal, and I often describe it as being like an open-air museum. There is so much history and industrial heritage. You can see little footprints of the past everywhere and how they all connect.”

As a Fine Art graduate specialising in sculpture, Rachael was intrigued when she spotted an advert for the Trust. “They were looking for apprentices for heritage and craft skills,” she tells us. “At the time, I was really missing working with my hands, that creativity, so I decided to apply.”

“It began as a heritage traineeship, which involved learning about the waterways and the traditional crafts that helped to create and maintain them. I immediately fell in love with stonemasonry, and I had quite a romanticised view of how it would be, imagining I’d be chiselling stone all day.”

After successfully completing her apprenticeship, Rachael took up a position in the direct services team as a craft operative, not far from her family home in Wales.

“I lived and worked on the Mon & Brec, which is all red sandstone, so it was a happy place to do stonemasonry, and I spent every day working on bridges, weirs and locks. Being able to get my teeth into such an interesting bit of history that’s so close to home was fantastic.”

During her apprenticeship, Rachael was taught to use many of the same tools, techniques and materials as the pioneers who built our canals.

“My training is very much in lime mortar,” she explains, “and over the years, I’ve repaired a lot of work carried out in the 1960s that relied on sand and cement. Unfortunately, when you use such a hard, unforgiving material alongside traditional lime mortar, it can create issues. In the last 30 years, we’ve realised that we need to go back to these heritage materials because they’re more malleable and durable than modern alternatives. It’s about preservation and conservation. If we don’t do things authentically and traditionally, we cause more problems.”

Early canal builders relied on nearby quarries and lime kilns, giving every canal its own unique ‘recipe’ for mortar. For Rachael, these subtle differences tell the story of the people, places and industries that shaped our waterways. "I get really geeky about this," she tells us, "but to put it simply, lime mortar isn't just made up of sand and lime; it also contains locally sourced materials, like crushed stone, coal or brick dust, that allow water to get in and out, so structures can move, breathe and settle over time. It's incredible to think that by repairing our assets using the same age-old methods and materials they were originally built with, they’ll actually last longer.”

Perhaps Rachael’s proudest moment came when she received a prestigious Heritage Angel award for restoring a wall on Brynich Aqueduct, which carries the Mon & Brec over the River Usk.

“The whole thing was close to collapse due to the use of sand and cement as I explained before,” Rachael recalls. “We had to take the wall down piece by piece, cataloguing every stone before rebuilding it piece by piece from the foundation stones. In the process we realised the wall undulates gently all the way along to stabilise the structure. It was such a lovely discovery, and one we may have missed altogether if we’d simply started from scratch. It’s another wonderful example of how you can learn to follow the intentions of the people who originally built a structure.”

A series of secondments on the Kennet & Avon Canal helped Rachael learn new skills, giving her a deeper understanding of what it takes to keep our canals moving.  “I spent two winters on the K&A managing lock gate projects,” she says. “It was a whole new experience and taught me that every canal is different. Even if you think you know the process, every waterway has its own unique challenges.

“There’s a lot of problem-solving involved. You often don't know the full extent of a job until the canal is drained, so you're constantly adapting. That's why everything we do has to be collaborative. You can't do it alone; it takes engineers, designers and volunteers all working together.”

Rachael is now building her management and problem-solving skills to help preserve our historic canals for the future. And though she’s not ‘on the tools’ for the time being, her first love will always be the traditional stonemasonry skills that have kept our canals alive for generations. So next time you’re passing a stone bridge, or a lock wall, think of Rachael. And all skilled craft apprentices, soon to follow in her footsteps.