Pluto

The Leeds & Liverpool Canal is still fed by the same number of reservoirs as it was at the beginning of the 20th century. You may be thinking of the Rochdale and Huddersfield Narrow Canals, which have seen a reduction in reservoir numbers, so why did they keep open and the L&LC close last year?

Obviously, rainfall does have an effect, but there should not have been a need to close the canal at such an early stage last year had there been a little more care early in the year. On the number of boats, the current number passing locks over the summit is about the same as when the canal was in greatest use, just before the 1st W W. However, there were ten times more using the canal lower down, with water having to be fed down from the summit to feed this water usage. If you think that 1.5 million tons were carried annually between Liverpool and Wigan, this equates to 30,000 loaded boats annually, or 82 per day, making seven every two hours throughout every day of the year, and that without considering boats returning empty.

The number of boats using the canal today, ie passing through locks, is around a tenth of those that used to use the canal around 1914, so a few extra hire boats will not have any appreciable effect on the water supply. Lack of water today is the result of a decline in maintenance which started after the First World War, when canals generally were not repaid for the damage done during the war. Unfortunately, the decline in maintenance standards is still continuing.

Natural heritage seems to be rather well represented, with built heritage getting none. It suggests that they will not be well informed regarding the conservation of the built heritage, which is probably the key requirement for any body overlooking what BW, or its successor, does.

Good to see that the panel doesn't have anyone with long-term canal experience.

It's not quite as simple as this, although cost was a major factor as English canals were usually built with private money, rather than public. Other factors to be considered included water supply, though this would have been virtually the same for equal tonnages whether the locks were wide or narrow. One other important factor was what traffic was expected to be carried; wide boats were certainly able to carry larger individual packages, and was it better to have a wide boat such that cargoes could be delivered to coastal areas without transshipment. The Duke of Bridgewater was certainly in favour of a narrow T&MC as that ensured canal cargoes were transshipped between narrow boats and his flats for delivery to and from Liverpool. The extra cost of the transshipment could certainly make the additional cost of a wide canal more acceptable. The difference in cost between the two was certainly much less than the four times you quote, even for tunnel building, with Rennie's cost for a wide or narrow Rochdale Canal being £350,000 compared to £290,000.

No, vandals set fire to the hull at Ellesmere Port in the mid-1980s, which at least shamed the local authority into providing some security fencing at the Boat Museum. What upset me most was not the loss of the hull, several people here can tell you of the problems of maintaining an old wooden L&LC boat, which is much more difficult than maintaining a wooden narrow boat, but the cabin in Pluto was the last surviving one still as built and painted by a traditional boatyard. The paintwork was last done in the 1950s. Other surviving wooden L&LC boats had had their cabins removed to improve access for hull maintenance.

From the drawings I have for L&LC gates, at Greenberfield and Barrowford each gate was 10 feet 5 inches at the top, narrowing to 10 feet 2 inches at the bottom. Lock widths as reported circa 1920 (possibly for the earlier Royal Commission) varied from 14 feet 8 inches at the top of Bingley 3-rise to 15 feet 8 inches at the bottom of Wigan, 16 feet at Liverpool and 17 feet at Tarleton. The story of gates being removed from the north west to Saul is pretty definite, and I seem to remember seeing something in paperwork of the time when looking through archive material. The 1960s were a time when canal finances were being reviewed, with standard steel lock gates dating from then, and they were introduced to keep costs down on smaller waterways. Possible variations in mitre angle first came to my attention around fifteen years ago, when the lock gate workshop at Stanley Ferry had an open day, with gates for the L&LC and C&HN being displayed next to each other. The latter are much smaller, framework timber dimensions being perhaps 2 inch less all round.

I have always understood that these gates came from the Rufford Branch in the 1960s, when there was no direct money for the Stroudwater. An old pair of L&LC gatse, in need of refurbishment, were sent to the south west where they were made to fit. Rufford locks are between 15 feet and 16 feet wide, with Tarleton Lock over 17 feet wide. Any slight variation in width between L&LC and Sroudwater (nominally 15 feet 6 inches) could easily be overcome, particularly if the mitre angle was different. The L&LC gates have a much sharper mitre angle than the C&HN, for example. The other location for sourcing recycled gates would have been Tewitfield Locks on the Lancaster, which were cascaded around then.

Canal boat, and hence lock, size was usually based on the local river or estuary boat then in use. In the north west, these were around 68 feet long and perhaps 15 feet wide, though the more up river boats were narrower. In the north east, around 60 feet was the standard length, with 14 feet being the width in the early eighteenth century. The Bridgewater was initially built for 68 feet long wide boats with a rudder length of up to four feet. The Worsley mine boats were initially similar in length, but half the width, though by the end of the eighteenth century there were at least six different sizes for the mine boats, depending upon how far into the mine they worked. 68 feet plus 4 feet or rudder gives 72 feet, and that is what was used for the T&MC, with the width being halved to reduce building costs. Over the years, some lock sides have moved slightly, so a boat 6 feet 10 inches wide should not have too much difficulty anywhere.

Ten years ago I had to write a report on the length of inland waterways in Britain at ten year intervals from 1700. From this, I was able to compile figures for broad and narrow canals. The total figures were 1952 miles of broad canal, 1539 miles of river navigation (broad), and just 1257 miles of narrow canal.

When the new road aqueduct was built in the late 1960s or early 70s, in order to maintain navigation there were two inclines, one on either side of the aqueduct, joined by a railway, so boats could be pulled out of the canal on a cradle, traverse the works on the railway, and then be returned into the canal on the opposite side of the stoppage.

That is certainly one long term aim, but in the shorter term they are very aware that their own boats need work as money and time becomes available. The L&LCS is in discussion with them over the possibility of the yard undertaking the conservation work required on the former BW heritage boat Kennet, which the canal society now look after. Kennet will be at Saltaire from 15-18 April for World Heritage Day - this year's theme is water, and then will then be at the Skipton Waterway Festival over the Mayday bank holiday weekend, returning to Saltaire for their Arts event 28-30 May. The next Kennet event could be a heritage weekend at Burscough in June/July, with Kennet going on dock for a survey and minor hull repairs later in the summer.

I did ask DEFRA if they could tell mw how much of BW's grant went towards the land drainage provided by the canal system, but as usual they just answered the question they wanted to answer rather than what they were asked. AFAIC, BW's grant from government just pays for the benefits the country gains from land drainage provided by canals, boaters pay for the additional navigation structures, and everything else virtually comes for free.

It's not the size, but the difficulty in getting modern services installed which has led to several C&HN cottages falling into disrepair. BW's heritage officer at Leeds would be delighted to hear from anyone who can suggest new uses which would keep them in good order.

I think I mentioned in that topic that you can download copies of the L&LC Byelaws from my website, http://www.mikeclarke.myzen.co.uk/Downloads.html. Maintenance boats had the greatest priority, then fly boats, with the level of the lock dictating also which boat passed first. The distance markers were not the final arbiter of who had priority, rather they marked the point at which a decision could be made based upon the byelaws.

I have been told that, as there was no money at the time (1960s) for new Stroudwater gates, old gates from the L&LC were refurbished for use on the junction lock. Similar scissor-type paddles were also used on the Rochdale according to contemporary drawings, though with the rack running on top of the balance beam instead of along the side. I would have thought it too vulnerable there, which may be why it did not survive long.

I wrote a report for BW in 2007 looking at what original drawings were available for lock gates, and this took in paddle gear. There were some late 19th century drawings for paddle gear, though only for railway owned canals where they had easy access to a drawing office. On other canals, paddle gear seems to have been produced by the local maintenance workshop to a specification known to the workers but rarely recorded. On the L&LC, the paddle gear varied from workshop to workshop - there were four on the canal. The only way to identify the various types is from old photos, which obviously means that the earliest paddle gear cannot be recorded. On a survey I did of the Rochdale canal paddle gear, I identified three distinct chronological types, besides those installed during the recent reconstruction. None of the earliest type survive. As far as I could establish. there were no top gate paddles on any canal prior to the mid-19th century, when they were introduced to speed up traffic to compete with railways.

I seem to remember reading something recently which suggested that this is incorrect, and the GCR was built to the normal loading gauge of the time. Someone published it as a fact years ago, and it had never been challenged by research.