The Restoration of Tardebigge Lock

During the summer of 2025, Cawarden Reclaim played a vital role in the restoration of Tardebigge Lock. As the only company in the UK with the specialist expertise to clean the lock’s bricks individually and supply matching replicas where the originals could not be saved, we were proud to contribute to the preservation of this remarkable historic structure.

Tardebigge Lock is part of the Grade II listed Tardebigge lock flight on the Worcester and Birmingham Canal near Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. Stretching from Tardebigge towards Stoke Prior, it is officially the longest and steepest lock flight in the UK. Each summer season, around 1,900 boats rely on this extraordinary run of 30 locks to carry them over the Lickey Ridge.

In early 2025, the tallest lock on the flight was closed for urgent and extensive repair works after brickwork was found to be bowing inwards, creating a serious risk of collapse. Cawarden was proud to play an instrumental part in safeguarding this outstanding piece of Victorian engineering for future generations.

The Tardebigge lock flight was granted Grade II listed status on 1 December 1992. As a protected structure, all repair and restoration work had to be carried out not only to meet modern structural requirements, but also in a way that respected its historic importance. Conservation officers required as many of the original bricks as possible to be retained, cleaned and reused, ensuring the renovation remained faithful to the original materials and methods.

To achieve this, the internal walls were carefully dismantled brick by brick before being transported to our yard. There, our experienced team of brick dressers meticulously cleaned each brick by hand, removing years of silt and mortar. Lock No. 58, at an impressive 11ft deep, is the deepest on the flight, and the scale of the restoration was considerable. In total, our team hand-cleaned 16,000 valuable Victorian Staffordshire Blue bricks.

Any bricks that were too damaged during removal to be reused had to be replaced with an exacting like-for-like alternative. For this, Ketley 80mm Staffordshire Blue Engineering Bricks were selected. Manufactured just 15 miles from the Tardebigge site, these bricks are made using clay extracted from the same Etruria clay seam as the original Victorian bricks. This meant the replacements not only closely matched the appearance of the originals, but also offered the same exceptional strength and durability.

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