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River Swale


Chris Lowe

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This is Leeming Lock in 2018, with the old A1 bridge in the background. The chamber wall on the left has been cut down as part of the water system for an old water mill which still survives and is located behind the photographer. Now being converted to a house, there are still a number of fixtures to be seen in the mill. The basin at Bedale still survives as well, and there are a few difficult to find survivors on Cod Beck, in Thirsk. There is a surprising amount for what was, in effect, an unfinished navigation which was only used for a few years.

Leeming.jpg

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4 hours ago, Pluto said:

This is Leeming Lock in 2018, with the old A1 bridge in the background. The chamber wall on the left has been cut down as part of the water system for an old water mill which still survives and is located behind the photographer. Now being converted to a house, there are still a number of fixtures to be seen in the mill. The basin at Bedale still survives as well, and there are a few difficult to find survivors on Cod Beck, in Thirsk. There is a surprising amount for what was, in effect, an unfinished navigation which was only used for a few years.

Leeming.jpg

Thank you for that pic, I often wondered if anything survived, but this is the lock near Leeming Bar on the Beadle Beck, not Topcliffe? 

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29 minutes ago, buccaneer66 said:

Lidar image of the locks at Topcliffe

 

image.png.d43449f6937c229fa38f3faf283d787a.png

 

I knew about Leeming Lock, but not about these ... and that's Cod Beck almost breaking through into the Swale - did they really think they were going to get keels up Cod Beck to Thirsk?

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12 hours ago, Richard Carter said:

I knew about Leeming Lock, but not about these ... and that's Cod Beck almost breaking through into the Swale - did they really think they were going to get keels up Cod Beck to Thirsk?

No, Topcliffe Lock just raised the boat into the raised upper level(the wier had an additional shelf then)

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26 minutes ago, matty40s said:

No, Topcliffe Lock just raised the boat into the raised upper level(the wier had an additional shelf then)

So does that mean that working lock(s) were actually built at Topcliffe? I'd got the impression it didn't get that far. I guess that would have helped boats to get further up the Swale towards Bedale Beck, but four other locks were also planned, plus a second one on Bedale Beck, and there seems no trace of them, so navigation will not have been easy. Wikipedia quotes The river is said to be the fastest flowing in England and its levels have been known to rise 10 feet (3 m) in 20 minutes so perhaps no surprise if it was too great a challenge to create a navigation in the 1760s

 

Given how obscure this is nowadays I find it remarkable that 75 years later, when the OS map makers came along, those Topcliffe earthworks were still associated with locks and river improvement.

 

There were navigation works started in Thirsk as well, the same OS 6 in maps show a "Lock Bridge" so Cod Beck must have been under serious consideration for a while.

Edited by Richard Carter
@matty40s crossed with your latest
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OK, yes Topcliffe, but not the locks below Topcliffe as shown  in the first post of this thread, but here, just above the village, with the weir, the mill, and the roadway by the river:

 

Topcliffe.jpg.9a4d417335fa939abbab662397b3c7cf.jpg

 

Remarkable that there is evidence of a lock cut on the modern satellite image but not on this map!

Edited by Richard Carter
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A P Voce was researching the navigation before he died, and I have passed on his notes to the Northallerton Record Office. (I have digital copies of their holdings, Cod Beck and Swale Navigation ZAG/279) I did copy all his photos, and have the uncompleted text for his book. The photo below was taken in 1964.

SW:003 1964, Voce, Topcliffe.jpg

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16 minutes ago, Pluto said:

A P Voce was researching the navigation before he died, and I have passed on his notes to the Northallerton Record Office. (I have digital copies of their holdings, Cod Beck and Swale Navigation ZAG/279) I did copy all his photos, and have the uncompleted text for his book. The photo below was taken in 1964.

SW:003 1964, Voce, Topcliffe.jpg

 

So there were works actually carried out - but was this for navigation or to protect the bridge against floodwater?

 

I wonder if we shouldn't be saying "Asenby Locks" for the earthworks which started this thread off, to save confusion with the weir upstream of Swale Bridge in Topcliffe?

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2 hours ago, matty40s said:

Have a read of the linked pdf  I posted, if it doesnt work, I will post a different link. Page 131 onwards 

Thanks for this - my bad, I didn't register the link properly. Link works fine, looking forward to reading it. I grew up in Ripon, this feels like a "home" waterway ...

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1 hour ago, Derek R. said:

Interesting to compare Richard's line map to the modern satellite image. Anchor Dikes - do they relate to 'Old Sike' on the satellite version?

 

https://tinyurl.com/abrw4sa9

That track leading to the Mill is called Old Sike on the old OS map as well

54 minutes ago, buccaneer66 said:

The lock location I posted earlier is here on this zoomed out map, it's just near Topcliffe.

 

image.png.959367b75f308f7bd805880c4b95fc7e.png

 

I wasn't expecting such a good discussion.

I'm really enjoying this too, and learning ...

 

This lock site, downstream from Topcliffe turns out to be known as Leckby Lock (from the info linked by @matty40s upthread)

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4 hours ago, buccaneer66 said:

A couple of interesting newspaper articles.

 

How a lack of cash scuppered an engineering project of the canal age

 

Bedale seeks harbour master 240 years after canal scheme ran aground

 

The first one is what pointed me to look around Topcliffe.

I'm beginning to imagine this as a film - maybe by Michael Winterbottom, along the lines of "A Cock and Bull Story", his 2006 version of Tristram Shandy (from exactly this period) - in which the newly appointed Bedale Harbourmaster tries to get his keel up from York to Bedale, including at Topcliffe passing through "the first Swale Lock which without vanity it may be said if not the very best, yet one of the best and compleatest Locks in England."

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Looking at the archive material I copied some years ago, there seems to have been a court case about the Earl of Egremont's land flooding, which may have been one reason for the failure of the navigation to survive. The photo shows what is taken to be the wharf in Thirsk, and there is a second 1767 plan.

Thirsk.jpg

1767 Swale Navigation.jpg

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