22 August 2024

by Lisa Jupp

After an extremely productive committee meeting and networking lunch with the British Marine Midlands team, an exciting tour of Diglis Island Lock and Fish Pass had been organised. We were toured around by resident expert, Rick Fowler, who had previously worked at the site for many years, and now volunteers to carry out guided tours since retiring.

Diglis Island is a little known gem, hidden within the heart of Worcester with stunning views of the cathedral. And, more unusually, only a stone’s throw from the city centre. It has a rich heritage due to its position along the middle of the River Severn, Britain’s longest river. 

During our tour, we had the opportunity to learn all about the history of the Diglis Island canal, locks and weir, which were created to transport goods to the rest of the world in the first half of the 19th century. To this day it remains a tremendous feat of Victorian engineering.

The Victorian workshop proved to be an incredibly interesting location for our meeting, which was built prior to the lock expressly for the purpose of constructing the lock gates. We got the chance to see the original workbenches, tools and hoists used to do this.

Outside, we were informed about the weir, which is a 2m construction created to stabilise the river levels throughout the year. However, this proved to cause problems for the fish in the river who found it more difficult to swim upstream to spawn. The most affected species was the twaite shad, a popular fish to eat with local people, and their population decreased rapidly. Hence, the fish pass was constructed to allow fish to bypass the weir and continue to swim upstream to spawn.

We were then taken to see the fish pass to get a closer look at how it works and even go inside the viewing gallery. The viewing gallery is at riverbed level and we were lucky enough to see a dace, and a salmon hanging around waiting to spawn, albeit a couple of months early.

The team really enjoyed their visit and asked lots of questions. It was a truly inspirational look at how The Canal and River Trust are helping to preserve our river fish. A conservation opportunity at its finest!