Llanfoist, near Abergavenny, is a town nestled beneath the embankment of the beautiful Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal. While picturesque, this embankment is also what we class as a 'critical asset' — a location we constantly monitor to ensure the 250-year-old canal above the town is always resilient enough to withstand even major storms.
Thanks to gifts in Wills, which covered most of the £230,000 cost of the project, we have been able to replace the safety gates which would hold back 40 miles of water and protect the town if the canal ever breached. The existing gates had reached the end of their natural life, and we were keen to ensure their replacements would last for as long as possible.
Simon Turner, national workshop manager explains: “It's a very expensive job just to put one gate in so we didn't want to be doing it in 25 years, we wanted 50 years from these gates. To ensure that, we used a reclaimed tropical hardwood called Greenheart, as opposed to an Oak. As one of the most durable types of wood in the world, we could even get a lifespan of 60 or 70 years.”
It is a powerful legacy that will keep the canal and the people of Llanfoist safe for decades to come.
Thanks to generous support to the tune of £187,900, a set of four newly restored safety gates are now in place to protect the town below our embankment from any danger of flood.
