Pluto

I would expect wooden lock floors to be used where there was no solid foundation. The method was used across the Low Countries, and in many coastal areas, with the photo showing the reconstruction of one of the locks at Stade, in north Germany. The Yorkshire end of the L&LC has several examples, with River Lock in Leeds being illustrated. Where a lock was to be built on unstable land, a wooden frame was built fitted over a series of wooden piles. The stone or brick lock sides were then built on top of this platform. Any serious ground water was accommodated by culverts to lead the water away. I have just come across a contemporary description of this in the engineering reports for the construction of the Lancaster Canal. Voids behind lock walls can be attributed to ground water, but leakage from the upper canal level is also a problem. To protect against this, canal builders would use either a series of wooden piles or a puddle wall at right angles to the chamber wall, usually from around the quoin. An additional 'modern' problem is that building development around a canal will have altered ground water flows, and these flows will not have been fully recognised. Such things happened when canals were built, such as the drying up of wells in Foulridge when the L&LC was built. One old canal employee told me, 'You have to remember that water has narrow shoulders, it can get in anywhere.'

Alan Holden, who got Roger to build her, took her just about everywhere on the system, including tidal sections, and all with a 10hp single cylinder engine. The prop was right up to the rudder so easy to get at witgout a weed hatch. There was a good run to the propellor, though not as good as on my boat.

They could build something like Anna, which has more useful space than a narrow boat of the same length. Unfortunately, it would cost more to build.

I would agree that it can be difficult to instal windows on a traditional canal wide boat, but the space inside is far more useful than a narrow boat. The traditional cabin fills the bow, while the engine can be right at the back, so there is much more useful living space than on a narrow boat. My short boat had the propellor behind the sternpost, and though that meant you had to be careful steering, particularly in reverse and in locks, it was very easy to clear anything from the propellor. No need for restricted access through a hole on the counter. I would say that traditional wide boats make better conversions than narrow boats, though I don't think much of the wide boats built for canals today.

Yes, it was a very efficient service from the 1870s to the First World War. Around 1880, the Lancs & Yorks Rly were laying staff off in Burnley because the canal had taken part of their traffic.

In terms of tonnage carried, with figures from the Royal Commission in 1907, the GJC carried 1,140,000 tons, the SUC 1,100,000 tons, and the L&LC 2,450,000 tons. Obviously not all was carried by canal company boats, with coal tonnage on the L&LC being slightly more than general cargo, while the wide boat traffic on the southern GJC was probably much more significant than narrow boat traffic. I do have details for the L&LC fleet, though it is difficult to say exactly what the fleet consisted of at any particular time as old boats were sold off and new ones added. I have one contemporary suggestion that there were 1000 boats operating on the L&LC, though only 200 or so of those would be general cargo boats from the company fleet. As an aside, the FMC did look to having a few L&LC boats, but the traffic seems not to have developed. How intensively the boats were used is also an important aspect. This graph shows the work of an L&LC boat in 1907 which suggests that it was not waiting for long periods. 2014 boat movements colour.pdf

Not originally, with canal company owned fleets developing to combat railway competition from around 1840.

I have just come across this, suggesting the protection was added after construction, in the Engineer's reports for the Lancaster Canal: William Crosley reporting to the Lancaster Canal committee in 1819… I am having cast iron guards made for the abutments of the bridges on the towing path side, these I trust will answer the purposes intended better than rollers and will not I think be more expensive.

There is a change in lock length. All the locks from Poolstock to Wigan were originally for 62 feet long boats only, but were quickly rebuilt so that narrow boats could reach Liverpool, hence locks 22 and 23 at Wigan were lengthened, as were the locks on the Leigh branch which were then at Poolstock and Dover. These were replaced by the Poolstock 2 around 1900-1915 because of mining subsidence.

Wigan flight Lock 21 could be considered.

Not in Germany, surprisingly as they tend to fence off locks, though mainly the larger ones. The lack of fencing on European railways is in stark contrast to the UK. I suspect it is down to how land was/is managed and any right to roam legislation.

For an interesting book on lock development and gate types see: https://www.stowa.nl/sites/default/files/assets/PUBLICATIES/Publicaties 2000-2010/Publicaties 2000-2004/STOWA 2004-XX boekenreeks 20.pdf It takes a little time to download and is in Dutch, but with lots of illustrations.

The name 'Navvy' is a reminder of the importance of the canal age to the development of the civil engineering industry, and thus to the economic growth of the country. Without the engineering knowledge gained during the canal age, the railway age and the construction industry generally would have been much slower to become established.

Although there were a few Irish navvies employed during the canal age, it was the various Irish famines, together with landlords removing Catholics from their lands, which encouraged the Irish navvy to become established. There are several books on the railway navvy which suggest that Lancashire and Yorkshire men made the best navvies, followed by the Scots and Midlanders. The Irish were looked down on a little as they would send money back to their families. On canals, navvies often followed a specific engineer, such as Whitworth in the early 1790s bringing down Scottish navvies with him, after he had completed the F&CC, to work on the L&LC.

I put these display panels together for the L&LC Society, looking at horse towage on the canal. Wooden rollers were used to prevent wear on the bridge arch stonework. I have also included a photo of Higherland Bridge and Lock at Gargrave, where wrought iron strip was used to prevent wear to the bridge stonework.

Tow ropes would pick up grit from the towpath and they would then create grooves in anything they rubbed against, either stone or cast iron. Tow ropes would need to be changed about every six weeks because of wear. Cast iron was used because it was much cheaper to produce the guards than in wrought iron or later steel. Numerous grooves were worn because each boat and each horse would be a different height, so the tow rope height would vary, These rope guards were provided at places where tow ropes were likely to rub, so mainly bridges. The arch was the main location because the bridge hole was much narrower than the canal either side, so the 80 foot long tow line would rub on both faces of the bridge on the tow path sides.

The photo is looking east towards Owl Swing Bridge, 216, with Leeds ring road bridge in the distance.

I would agree with Simpson Davies as the cabin side wording ends in '…S Ltd'. Six plank boats were usually owned by Runcorn firms, Simpson Davies or Horsfields, and perhaps Rathbone's/Wells at Stretford.

Given the date, it is without doubt the Manchester Ship Canal.

Wooden gates are generally more suitable for 18th century canal locks as they tend to distort to accommodate any misalignment of the quoins over the years. Steel gates do not distort and thus can cause pressure points on the seal. The current problems with sills on the Wigan flight may well be the result of using steel gates since the 1960s in an area affected by subsidence.

Both photos are of maintenance boats, probably steered by someone using a shaft at the 'back' of the boat, location depending on direction of travel. I did find that a bucket hung off the back of a wide boat would keep the boat fairly steady, and I have towed several L&LC dumb boats short distances on my own like this in the 1970s when there were few other boats around.

I suspect that, often, not enough care is taken to ensure that the puddling at the top of the lock is fully watertight. As a result, there can be a flow from the upper canal level behind the lock walls which creates the voids. Many of our canals had little use in the 1940s and 1950s, and the result could be that some of the puddle dried out and cracked, to become permeable. Little is said about the subject in contemporary books on canal engineering as it is, basically, common sense. I have seen drawings where there was a puddle trench at right angles to the chamber wall from the upper quoins to prevent water getting behind the chamber walls. There was also the problem of ground water, and where this formed running streams, canal engineers were usually very careful to provide a culvert of some sort so the flow did not damage the chamber walls. Ground water in general was not a problem as it does not flow quickly, and can be helpful in keeping the clay puddle damp. The classic example of damage from ground water was the river lock at Toulouse during construction of the Canal du Midi. At high river levels, water got behind the lock walls, quickly causing a collapse. As a result, the canal was completed with locks having concave side walls to the locks, though this is not a good solution, and straight lock walls are better.

Not sure about it being a Trent boat as it is not like this one at Holme Lock. Of course, there are certainly variations in construction around the Trent.

Sam Yates, who was a boatbuilder at Whitebirk, Blackburn, told me that in the north west a boat was under 14ft measured over the outside of the frames, with barges being greater than that. This makes wooden L&LC craft 'boats', as the three inches of rubbing strake on either should be subtracted from the standard 14ft 3in width of L&LC craft to give the width over the frames as 13ft 9in. However, rubbing strakes on the steel boats were only about one inch, so their width over the frames was just over 14 ft, making them barges.