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Wide beam lift bridge - where?


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As per the title - this picture has been posted in a group on Facebook and no-one, including me, seems to know where it is. 

 

Lift bridge, bascule type, similar to Llangollen bridges but wide beam with a butty under the bridge and the motor ahead in the distance. 

 

My guess would be GU but I can't think where, the only lift bridge I know of on the GU is on the Chess above Batchworth side lock. 

200789475_840415573544872_78167514715171973_n.jpg

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49 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

As per the title - this picture has been posted in a group on Facebook and no-one, including me, seems to know where it is. 

 

Lift bridge, bascule type, similar to Llangollen bridges but wide beam with a butty under the bridge and the motor ahead in the distance. 

 

My guess would be GU but I can't think where, the only lift bridge I know of on the GU is on the Chess above Batchworth side lock. 

200789475_840415573544872_78167514715171973_n.jpg

We have plenty up here mostly electric now but in their day would have been manual the bases are still in place on Sheffield and Tinsley mostly swing bridges 

Edited by peterboat
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I believe it's somewhere between Apsley and Paddington as the pair look like a pair of John Dickinson’s ‘Paper Dashers’. The butty looks like ALICE towed by one of the steamers hired from FMC

 
Paper would account for the high waterline of the loaded pair. 
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Is it a lock in the distance? 

 

Intriguing one. 

 

There is a funny narrow bit near the gravel works at West Drayton I wonder if it was there. 

 

Doesn't seem likely but it is a bit of an odd unusually narrow bit of the cut in the area. 

 

No locks about though. 

 

Maybe the houses in the distance are not related to any locks. 

 

There is an industrial estate near there which could have been houses previously. 

 

 

It does look like a lock in the background. 

Edited by magnetman
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This location. Obviously a lot of modernisation since but intereresting there is still a bridge there and rather an unusual one. 

 

Screenshot_2021-06-14-22-01-49-420_com.google.android_apps_maps.jpg.db1ffd5dd0f8221e3c1218571028b836.jpg

 

ETA not sure what the odd floating wing thing is perhaps I could be one of the CRT wellbeing robots out for some trials. 

Edited by magnetman
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6 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Not sure about that. The counterweights are pretty close to ground level.

If you look at it like that then anyone going across the bridge is not going to want to have a wheeled vehicle. Big step down from the deck to the end of the beams. 

 

I reckon it would go higher but also looks ok to get a wide boat through. 

 

It's just above top locks innit.

 

ETA the bloke sitting beside the beams his legs and the distance between that and the road level. It could go up quite a bit further. 

 

 

Also no reason not to have some dug out areas for the ends of the beams to drop into after all this was before most people alive were about so speculation is all we have isn't it. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by magnetman
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The slightly curved deck of the bridge would suggest to me that it was possibly a mid 19th century construction, post-dating the opening of the canal, if it is the GJC as suggested. There seems plenty of room for a wide boat and their cabins had, if I remember photos of them correctly, more tumblehome, even though they were the same height as those on a narrowboat. The pivot of the bridge is set back from the edge of the canal by a couple of feet, which should give enough clearance.

  • Greenie 1
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2 hours ago, Pluto said:

The slightly curved deck of the bridge would suggest to me that it was possibly a mid 19th century construction, post-dating the opening of the canal, if it is the GJC as suggested. There seems plenty of room for a wide boat and their cabins had, if I remember photos of them correctly, more tumblehome, even though they were the same height as those on a narrowboat. The pivot of the bridge is set back from the edge of the canal by a couple of feet, which should give enough clearance.

 

Thank you for articulating what I was thinking Mike, but couldn't quite put into words. 

 

Add to those considerations, I don't think GJ wide boats were 14 foot, more like 12 foot 6 inches IIRC so they could pass to one side of the opening, as this narrow boat is doing

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I know the area quite well, we used to tie where the boat is seen.

Toovey's does appear to be a distinct possibility. What might appear to be a lock in the distance is probably a 'Red Herring'. The weir off to the right (it looks like a weir) has no guard rails in the original photo, but there probably wouldn't have been any back then. I recall a paddle gear being there during our years afloat, but that too could have been added at a later date.

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5 minutes ago, The Happy Nomad said:

I dont think we have got to the root of the problem..

We seem to be branching out from the original topic.

 

[Jeez, are tree puns even more plentiful than fish puns?]

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