Pluto

It's a British thing, to make lock gates from wood. Many continental canals went over to iron and subsequently steel many years ago. The technology requires a more adaptable seal for the mitre than you get with wood, which is why the steel gates made in this country were rubbish. They were simply a replacement for wooden gates made as cheaply as possible. Wooden gates tend to flex slightly when under pressure, and this helps the mitre to seal properly. With steel gates, this flexibility needs to be provided for by making the gate anchors less rigid and by routine maintenance of the mitre, the latter sadly lacking today in Britain, with narrow boats only using one gate on wide canals exacerbating the problem. Some continental waterways also replaced the wooden mitre with rubber to ensure a good seal. I don't think balance is a problem, as continental gates tend not to have balance beams, which suggests that easy operation of gates does not rely upon the balancing effect of the balance beam. In fact, one point of view could be that they just add to the weight and thus increase wear.

Ah, but what sort of hydraulic lime. The quality of hydraulic lime has changed significantly over the years. The Romans used Pozzolano, which was mixed with lime to create a good mortar. For the mortars created by Smeaton and subsequent engineers, local limes were treated in a variety of manners to make a mortar which would cure in contact with water and still able to withstand the action of water. The development of lime mortars led to the development of cement. The rate of development varied from country to country because of the different chemical constitution of local limes. It was a pretty inexact science until chemists could analyse raw lime and identify particular impurities.

Collapsing canal bridges are not a new problem:

Charlie Atkins told me that when working for the SUC or successors, should you want a few easy days on dock, a quick bash to a bottom board would create the leakage required. Once you were booked on dock, a second bash to the kelson would spring the board back up and stop the leak, allowing a good night's sleep without pumping prior to docking. I think that some wooden bottoms had wooden pegs between bottom boards to stop them from springing in this way.

Longitudinal bottom planking is quite common on river barges and boats, such as Thames sailing barges.The two photos here show a replica Ruhr coal barge being built at Mülheim around ten years ago. The construction is typical for such craft. Often, no keelson is used and the planks are sometimes held in place by dowels of some sort, together with the framing as shown.

Flats are more usually the sailing vessels or deeper dumb boats used around the Mersey Estuary and Irish Sea. The Bridgewater, Rochdale, Sankey and SUC had flats, but it would be unusual, and to some extent incorrect, to call a L&LC boat a flat, as a flat is a development of a barge. The term short boat was not used extensively by boatmen on the L&LC, as they all knew the length of the boat they were talking about, and didn't have to be reminded - or am I being pedantic about not being pedantic?

As a historian, I'm not too worried either, as long as what is done to an historic boat is recorded.

Please note, they are BOATS not BARGES.

Looking at this from the other side, I once used an incorrect caption in the photo book on the A&CN. The photo came from the Waterways Archive, where it had no title at all. It could have been one of two sites, and from the negative numbering, I chose the wrong site. It was made worse by the publisher then using the photo on the front cover. It can sometimes be a problem writing captions when you didn't take the photo, are working to a tight timetable, and don't consider the expense of a site visit worthwhile. Mistakes are only human after all, and when writing a book, rather than compiling photos, I certainly wouldn't believe anything published without checking further. What does annoy me is when bad research is repeated, such as all the rubbish written about the Duke of Bridgewater and Brindley. The former gets all the accolades because of his social position, while the latter was a very competent millwright, rather than a brilliant engineer.

Your best source will be the Institution of Civil Engineers who have an extensive archive. I did report on the proposal to make the Augustowski Canal in Poland into a World Heritage Site, and the use of lime mortar was one of the features they thought important. I did some research into this and can send you details if you contact me. Just look up Mike Clarke on Google and you should find my email. For those interested, the following is a brief chronology. A chronology for hydraulic lime/cement, 1750-1850. 1753, Semple uses a concrete for the foundations of a bridge over the Liffey, Dublin. 1756, Smeaton uses hydraulic lime for the construction of Eddystone lighthouse. 1793, Smeaton publishes papers on his hydraulic lime experiments. 1796, James Parker patents his process for making hydraulic cement in England. 1818, Vicat published his book on lime. 1818, Maurice St.Leger patents his process for making hydraulic lime in America. 1818, Dr John, of Berlin, publishes memoir on hydraulic lime. c1820, used for constructing Toulon harbour. 1822, Berthier publishes analysis of different limestones. 1822, Raucourt publishes experiments on limestones in St Petersburg. 1822, used on the construction of the Erie Canal, America. 1824, Vicat completes the first concrete bridge at Souillac, France. 1824, used on the construction of the Saint Martin and Saint Maur Canal, Paris. 1824, Joseph Aspdin patents his process for hydraulic lime in England. 1825, Hassenfratz publishes memoir on mortar. 1828, Brunel uses hydraulic lime to repair the Thames Tunnel. 1850s, used extensively on the London sewerage system.

Sorry, Peace was formerly A39, not A38, so one of the boats used on the Wigan Power Station run and consequently in poor condition when sold circa 1973.

... and two buckets each.

I think Peace was formerly Appleby's A38, which then became Albert Blundell's Shirley, and then sold to Michael Sampson to become Peace. A38 was certainly in the best condition of all the A boats in the 1970s. Albert sold her in 1972 or 1973.

Just a bit further up Pall Mall. After Pall Mall was built in the 1880s, canal warehousing was built on Leeds Street, but the main new section was on Pall Mall. At least half still survives, mainly single storey, but there is a four storey section as well. The modern office is where the canal company office stood until it was destroyed by incendiaries in the war. If you go inside the single storey sections, you can still see how the ironwork was arranged for the arms off the main basin where boats could be loaded under cover. The entrance to the car park which uses the canal basin is at the north end of the warehousing on Pall Mall, although it is over a year since I used it. On the right of the entrance is the brick frontage of the Boatmen's Mission. The door and front window survive, though bricked up. The side basin parallel to Carruthers Street was also still visible when I was last there. The basin in Liverpool was partly filled in when Pall Mall was built, the only building surviving from the old basin is the Wigan Coal & Iron Company's office on Gt Howard Street, and that was completely rebuilt after developers tried to get away with demolishing it. The south side of Back Leeds Street was the closest the canal got to the town centre, and it was there that the packet boats operated from.

They seem to come from a canal file of some sort, and I would certainly be interested to know where from. The barges for sale could be ex-Rochdale Canal, given the variation in dimensions. In 1921, several canal companies in the NW sold off their carrying fleets - SUR&CC, Rochdale, L&LC - as no government subsidy was given to carriers for wartime damage and repairs. There was some money for the canals themselves, but this was less generous than that given to railways, which was also insufficient to cover their wartime costs. T H Burton was one of several contractors who moved nightsoil and manure, including cleaning out the cattle ships which arrived from America. The manure was delivered to farms in West Lancashire. The stables in Carruthers Street were one of several such canal company establishments around the terminal basin. I did photograph the area about fifteen years ago, but many buildings had already disappeared. Some of the canal warehousing survives in Pall Mall, and the basin is a car park where mooring rings can still be found on the copings. The main stable complex in Liverpool was demolished when Pall Mall was built in the 1880s, and it was moved to new buildings at Burscough.

The old lock chamber at Leeds has the same dimensions as locks on the L&LC, not unexpectedly as the size of the canal locks were based on those on the navigation. The second lock, still in use, was probably built circa 1830 when the navigation was being enlarged after extension to Goole, with the lower lock gate, extending the lock still further, being built after 1870. I have never come across any mention of the small lock being used as a drydock. The river above the lock was in continuous use by boats until the A&CN warehousing at Dock Street closed around 1975, so it would have been of little use as it would have been flooded every time a boat passed. On the old Lemonroyd system, the original 1700 lock was part of the weir exposed in the river. This was probably bypassed circa 1770 by a short cut around the old weir, and in turn the new lock was bypassed in 1830 when Methley Cut was built, after which it was used as a drydock for some time. Methley Lock probably disappeared in the late nineteenth century when the canal section was extended towards Castleford to avoid a shallow river section. I can remember boats loading at the Astley staithe next to the lock site in the 1970s, but there was no sign of lock remains. The Lemonroyd Lock which disappeared after the breach dates from the extension of Methley cut upwards passed Fleet, where the only watermill in this immediate area stood. Castleford was the next one below it.

Derwent, Clitheroe and Everton, all short boats, are owned by Wood, Hall & Heward, unconverted, carrying and based on GU. Farnworth, the last short boat to be built, is also based on GU (Rickmansworth I think). The Ainscough boats are: Black Prince/Burscough 2 and Bodicea, ex Ainscoughs long motor boats, are in Ireland. Ironclad/Cadellis, ex Ainscoughs and Albert Blundell, long motor boat went to GU, but may be elsewhere. Parbold/Norman, long dumb boat, is converted and moored at Cowley. Ambush (motor) and Viktoria (dumb) are owned by Derek Bent. I am unsure what happened to Attractive and Claymore (both dumb).

I seem to recall that there was a geological fault where the breach took place which had not been previously identified.

Yes, but it is a typical English Heritage listing which gives little information about what the structure was used for. EH listings are notoriously poor for industrial structures. I had to write a report on the listed South Dock Bridge in Goole, and the listing described the one removed circa 1905.

I suspect that tall towing masts were widely used on river navigations. Contemporary drawings of sailing boats being horse-drawn on canals and rivers usually show the towing point to be fairly high up the mast, and though such drawings can use artistic licence, they should not be ignored. On a river, a high towing position would make it less likely for the towline to catch, as has been mentioned previously. Note the gate in the fence, probably there because there was no defined towing path.

In 1996, I was working at Dock Street, sorting the old Aire & Calder Navigation drawings and was invited down to Lemonroyd as, following draining of the open cast mine, they had found the remains of several wooden keels in the river. There were also the remains of one of the early locks and its associated weir, and stone sleepers from an old tramway close to the early cast iron bridge which carried the tramway over the river. Through various contacts, the local historical society from Castleford recorded the site prior to everything being destroyed by continuation of the open cast excavations. Their work was written up in British Archaeology, and some of the finds are kept at the Yorkshire Waterway Museum at Goole. The drained river and one of the wooden boats. Sam Yates, who served his time as a wooden boatbuilder at Whitebirk (Blackburn), with a section of clinker-built keel. The lock and weir as revealed after the river had been drained. The lock had stone sides built on a wooden foundation which extended across the river to support the weir.

Martin, I think Mike Taylor wrote the Yorkshire Ouse book, I certainly didn't, and you haven't listed my book on L&LC traditional boat painting. I still have copies for sale!