Today we held a work party at Ilott Wharf to clear some of the overgrown brush from the site. There were a small but reasonable number of people present and between us we were able to cut and burn a not insignificant amount of overgrowth.

Today we were doing a small bit of archaeology at the very top corner of Ilott Wharf where there had once been some buildings and the level crossing for the colliery railway that ran across the road there. The purpose of this was to find out what remains were still present and to log our finds before the new line of the canal eventually runs through the site and any remains are removed. The session was ran under the supervision of a man from Leicester University’s Archaeological department.

We found what appeared to be the base of a fireplace and some brick foundations plus the base of the old street light that still had some cable attached!

In the coming weeks there will be a team from the University bringing equipment to survey the entire site at Ilott Wharf and through use of geophysics etc we should get a picture of what other remains, if any are still present beneath the ground.

This was all funded by a £10,000 National Lottery Heritage grant that we were awarded to complete this work before reinstating the canal through the site.

Today we visited the site at Ilott Wharf to assess the extent of the overgrowth in preparation for Sunday’s upcoming work party where we will try to clear as much as possible.

We also wanted to take these ‘before’ photos. Look out for the upcoming post from after the work party for the ‘after’ photos!