Iron Lock Gates

[Heartland]

Telford also started to use iron as part of his lock gates, but how common was the practice? For Telford it was a need for increased longevity, but cost may have restricted use. .

Since Telford some canal operators have installed conventional iron gates, but again their use seems to have been limited. Wigan Top Lock had top gates of metal- when were they installed ?

 

Then there are the guillotine gates and that at Lapworth and King Norton on the Stratford were earlier than Telford. So when was the first iron lock gate?

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

Oxford canal had/has some iron gates

[Tracy D'arth]

2 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

Oxford canal had/has some iron gates

Cast iron too. Still working well.

[David Mack]

4 hours ago, Heartland said:

Then there are the guillotine gates and that at Lapworth and King Norton on the Stratford were earlier than Telford. So when was the first iron lock gate?

Guillotine at Lapworth? Where?

[magpie patrick]

12 hours ago, David Mack said:

Guillotine at Lapworth? Where?

The original connection was via a stop lock that, I understand, had guillotine gates - that lock was where the link below locks 20 and 21 now is. 

 

Edited to add - I'm not sure the gates at Kings Norton really count as "cast iron" though - the bit that holds water back is wooden

Edited April 12, 2022 by magpie patrick

[Pluto]

Cast iron is not really suitable for lock gates as it can perform poorly under shock loading. It was also expensive when canals were being built, and used sparingly. Although there is cast iron paddle gear today, this may be replacement as early drawings suggest that wood and wrought iron were used more widely, with cast just for the rack and gearing.

 

From lock gate drawings in Warwick Record Office, it would seem that the Oxford Canal were interested in cast iron gates, but surviving drawings show cast iron as being used just for the quoin post, the lower side of the gate post being cast with a flat extension which was used for the seal, rather than the gate being forced into a hollow quoin in the chamber side. Of course, this only works with a single gate.

 

What can be seen from surviving drawings is the increasing use of wrought iron and then steel for the strengthening frames for the joints into the mitre and quoin posts. Early gates seem to have been lightly strengthened, sometimes just T-plates, which develop into major structural pieces which ran from top to bottom of the gate.

 

On Wigan top gate, this was replaced by BW with a steel gate in the 1960s or 1970s as part of their economy plan for lock gates. Previously all L&LC gates had been wooden.

[ditchcrawler]

 

[ditchcrawler]

 

Hilmorton 

[Heartland]

The Lifford Lane gates are composite as Patrick states

 

English Heritage listing is 2 *

Even if the date is wrong. The original barge lock was replaced 1814,

. Circa 1794-1802. Brick lined stone dressed stop lock with cast iron guillotine gate framework. Winched counterweight chain mechanism to guillotine gate which runs in slightly raked cast iron girder frame, the chain passing through a block on the gate and up over 2 wheels carried on one side out and down to winch and on the other out over a wheel supported by an elegant cast iron column before sinking with counterweight into post.
 

[Pluto]

If you go to http://rowingtonrecords.com/Canals/Witton/index.html#img=DSC00973.JPG there is a drawing, screen shot below, of a Worcs & Birmingham lock gate from circa 1794 which shows the limited use of ironwork on gates of that period. Later, the ironwork would be the full length of the gate, rather than in several small pieces.