magpie patrick

Yes My point is that the northern BCN is more rural than one might expect - if all you know is the New Main Line then much of the Curly Wyrley will be a pleasant surprise

Certainly the second is true so unless you have access to a crane it's not for you - it is delightful though. Picture is yesterday near Crickhowell if you want summer quiet that you can get to the northern BCN is for you, not as pretty but surprisingly rural

I've messaged you both, as I'm a moderator Haezlhurst can reply to my message and John will see it. Obviously so will I but I promise not to take advantage of this!

I think that's one of the locks at Cardiff Bay - two of the three can have a huge fall, I'm guessing in the region of 30 feet, the third has its floor rather higher. Not convinced they're part of the inland waterway system though - they fail on both parts of that description!

The IWA are asking for Something Peel can't give - and reading the item they are asking from a position of technical ignorance and it shows. @MtB has it right, we're two to three years off knowing what the solution is, the site is worse than building an embankment across virgin land because of the damage done by the breach, and if your starting point was virgin land I think the investigation and design would take 18 months minimum. I'm working on restoration schemes where we can't be sure of the timescale even once we've got the money, because of third party consents and conditions.

In short, they won't know yet what the plan for repair is. There will need to be site investigation, probably involving bore hole trials etc (which may need planning consent as the canal isn't part of the CRT network) to assess how to stabilise what's left and replace what has gone - piling up earth is easy, making sure it stays there is more problematic

The dinghy in question had a 2hp outboard and the licence allowed use of locks - something we made plenty of use of My thoughts too - the boat was licenced as a very small cabin cruiser (the lowest category of powered licence).

Dad had a car top dinghy that we had a BW licence for, it was kept in the garage (and is still there!) but BW wanted to know where it was moored, "not applicable" didn't work so dad used to put "Trent and Mersey canal", the accuracy of this information was never checked however. But I guess once such a declaration started to matter then there had to be suitable wording to ensure boats such as ours didn't fall foul of the law. I wonder now what licence on would have for a boat one keeps in the garage?

I've got carpet everywhere on my Viking 23, floor, ceiling, half way up the walls. It really isn't a problem as it cleans easily. The flat wooden table and the cushions are the problem for damage in winter, the wood stains and the cushions go mouldy - although the cushions are relatively easy to clean and could easily taken off.

That seems a sensible question @Pluto might know? This is the first time I've compared my own measurements to historical ones, the last time I used the technique was on the Boyne, where I had virtually no historic reference points.

Now found it on ABE books - do I need any more books I ask myself Certainly it had never occurred to me that the division of labour was formal, I'd assumed that the wives working the locks whilst the husband did "other things" was just how families organised things, in much the same way as it was always the woman steering the butty on our working pairs.

I think this is the right area of the forum, if only on the basis that I'm talking about distances on an old canal as listed in an old book - in this case Neath and Tennant Canals in Bradshaw 1904 For various reasons I needed to create a list of distances along these canals that covered all of the structures, so a distance from one end to each bridge, lock and aqueduct. I couldn't use the original mileage in Bradshaw as they only go to key points, only some locks are listed and unless a bridge is very significant it won't be listed at all, plus some features have since vanished and others been added - the A465 dual carriageway wasn't around in 1904 for example. Initially I put the distances that were known from Bradshaw into my table, and the measured off Google Earth for the rest, but I started to find significant discrepancies - for example, according to Bradshaw the total distance from the end of the canal at Briton Ferry to Bridge Street Neath is two miles seven furlongs (2m 3f on the Neath and 4f on the Earl of Jersey's canal), which is 4.6km, but measuring of Google Earth it's six kilometres, which would be one heck of an error and isn't easy to explain by changes in the last 120 years. I will add that my pedometer reading was consistent with "about 6km" once walking to and from the car at each end, and the inevitable deviation mid ramble was removed. There are other discrepancies, but not on this scale - in some instances they may well be rounding (Bradshaw seldom uses fractions of a furlong - approx 200m - whereas I'm down to the nearest 10m) and in some instances the error is within say 10%. The table for the Tennant Canal seems to be closer to the measurements from Google Earth. So was Bradshaw accurate? If no why not? and if so what's wrong with my measurements

Taking forum debate to a whole new level! 😄 be careful not to offend yourself though, keep it civilised....

Does Doncaster have an extra pair of gates? I know Bramwith does and Sykehouse use to have - the middle gates at Sykehouse were pinned back several years ago. The gates at Tuel Lane are ekki so have many years left in them, but when the time comes I'll bet one set won't be replaced - a campaign will be needed to make sure it's the longer lock that is retained.

I was sceptical of the second pair of gates when the lock was built, but its one of those things where the decision making process had an impact on the final design. A decision was made that the lock would only be 57 feet long "to save water" - given that Salterhebble locks, 3 miles away, are only 57 feet long there was a degree of logic, but protests were made and it was agreed that a second pair of gates would be added to allow 70 foot long boats to reach Sowerby Bridge basin. Had a 70 foot long lock been proposed in the first place I doubt anyone would have campaigned for a second set of gates to save water. Further, by adding the second gates, any cost savings were completely lost as the full length chamber had to be built. Bath Deep Lock was arguably underthought - basically because no one expected much traffic and there was some official resentment at having to build it at all - for a while "fill it in" campaigns had competed with restoration campaigns, and even as it was being built (mid 70s) it was by no means certain Devizes locks would ever reopen. By contrast, Tuel Lane was overthought, certainly from a water demand perspective as the traffic forecasts were, in hindsight, a tad optimistic. BDL has a ridiculously short pound above it, but it copes even thoughbit gets very busy, Tuel Lane by contrast has a longish pound above it, the extra water for the 70 foot lock would be lost in the noise given the usage levels.

I think it's Vinegar Lock on the Ashton Canal - the depths vary due to mining subsidence and a couple are well over 13 feet. I haven't looked up the exact depth though but 13 foot 10 inches rings a bell Bath Deep Lock opened in about 1986, Tuel Lane about 15 years later so you may have a point. Aside from the sometimes impressive amounts of water below BDL when it's busy it's not a lock you want something to go wrong in. There used to be safety fencing at the edge but it got cut away the first time a boat hung up on thr cill.

That IS grounds for a silly argument! I reckon it's because when the built Bath Deep Lock the rest of the canal wasn't navigable and the authorities thought it would never be used

Yes - @MtB is right, it's not Bath Deep Lock, the cill is wrong, the gates are wrong, and BDL hasn't been cleaned recently... 🙄 I'm slightly surprised that they had people working in it with water against the top gates - down our way CRT usually put stop planks in to avoid the gates being overtopped and swamping the people working in the lock, it also removes the risk of some nitwit opening a paddle. Perhaps there are fewer nitwits up north

I have often worked with the Chinese - if anything they tend to pick me up on my English.

It's the kind of thing I'd ask! There are other disconnected waterway - The Bridgwater and Taunton for example.

Thanks - that makes sense given that Belgium, Holland, Germany, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia all have connected inland waterway systems - it was only finding this website though that made me realise there are no tunnels on these systems. Thinking about it though there is no connection to the Mediterranean between the Rhone in France and the Black Sea, which Romania and Ukraine connect to, which means no canal through the mountains...