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New Locks on the canal system (mostly)


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Abington lock is new, but Weston Favell is as built in the 1930s.  (It has a  new barrage above it.)


I think the lock under the M1 on the Northampton Arm is new - relocated as part of the construction no doubt.

I will find out more about Bottisham.

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36 minutes ago, Scholar Gypsy said:

Abington lock is new, but Weston Favell is as built in the 1930s.  (It has a  new barrage above it.)


I think the lock under the M1 on the Northampton Arm is new - relocated as part of the construction no doubt.

I will find out more about Bottisham.

 

If that's lock 12 it's grade 2 listed! 

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2 hours ago, Ogwr said:

No place for Thurlwood Steel Lock ?

 

1 hour ago, magpie patrick said:

 Hmmm - yes it should be in the list shouldn't it - it was, after all completely new! 

Since Thurlwood Steel Lock was on exactly the same site as its predecessor, doesn't it fail your test of being a new location rather than a rebuild?

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13 minutes ago, David Mack said:

 

Since Thurlwood Steel Lock was on exactly the same site as its predecessor, doesn't it fail your test of being a new location rather than a rebuild?

 

It's arguable either way - none of the old structure survived but as you say the lock didn't move at all, on most rebuilds part of the old structure survives, often the invert - so it's a bit of a one-off. It's not really what I was looking for but it was a new structure. 

To describe what I was looking for is difficult, but roughly "locks built in the modern era to a traditional design using modern materials and techniques" - the main emphasis is "modern era", at least in part to compare with any locks that might be built in the near future - "here's one we did earlier" kind of thing

Thurlwood steel lock is such a one off that you can't really categorise it. 

 

Edited - having re-read my original definition you're right. 

Edited by magpie patrick
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6 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

To describe what I was looking for is difficult, but roughly "locks built in the modern era to a traditional design using modern materials and techniques" - the main emphasis is "modern era", at least in part to compare with any locks that might be built in the near future - "here's one we did earlier" kind of thing

Thurlwood Steel as an anti-example of one built not to a traditional design that was plagued with problems and scrapped as a result?

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14 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

 

If that's lock 12 it's grade 2 listed! 

 

 I knew that I was getting old when I realised that I once worked on the tender to construct a building that has since been listed!

 

 

Edited by Tim Lewis
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11 hours ago, David Mack said:

Also Albert Dock Marina lock, London and Brunswick Dock lock, Liverpool, both of which were built within older ship locks.

I think both those are stretching the definition of Inland waterway, Royal Albert Dock is downstream of Lea Mouth and isn't an inland waterway in it's own right - Brunswick lock is more plausible although the Mersey-Eastham passage isn't as free and easy as the Limehouse-Teddington one

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1 hour ago, magpie patrick said:

I think both those are stretching the definition of Inland waterway, Royal Albert Dock is downstream of Lea Mouth and isn't an inland waterway in it's own right - Brunswick lock is more plausible although the Mersey-Eastham passage isn't as free and easy as the Limehouse-Teddington one

By the same token you could argue that the Regents Canal inland waterway ends at Limehouse Basin, and that Limehouse Lock was built to allow seagoing craft into the basin, where goods were transhipped to inland craft.

Are all of your barrage-on-formerly-tidal-rivers new locks on inland waterways.

We all think we know what we mean by 'new locks on inland waterways' but it's quite hard to get a watertight definition!

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13 minutes ago, David Mack said:

 

We all think we know what we mean by 'new locks on inland waterways' but it's quite hard to get a watertight definition!

That's Winston Churchill and his hippopotamus definition!

 

Limehouse is used as part of an inland journey, by boats going west on the Thames from it or having come from the west. 
Tidal rivers are inland navigations within reason - my reasoning is ill defined but certainly includes inland from the connection with a non-tidal waterway, but also for want of a better description where they are cruising grounds in their own right - thus for example the Fal is an inland waterway. Some rivers with barrages were cruising grounds already, some have become such once non-tidal.

I'm probably okay counting locks that mark the end of inland waterways (hence some of the river barrages) - so Brunswick might count on two grounds - it's the seaward end of the Liverpool Link and you can nip across the Mersey to the Manchester Ship Canal - that's a rather different crossing to the tidal Trent or the tidal Thames though.  

I really don't buy the Thames downstream of Lea Mouth as an inland waterway in it's own right, not do I buy Royal Albert Dock as an inland waterway - so that's out!

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52 minutes ago, David Mack said:

 

We all think we know what we mean by 'new locks on inland waterways' but it's quite hard to get a watertight definition!

Similarly the CRT seem to have issues around getting watertight locks ;)

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2 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

so Brunswick might count on two grounds - it's the seaward end of the Liverpool Link

Not really. Since Brunswick lock was opened in 1987 as part of the new Brunswick Dock Marina which was part of the redevelopment of Liverpool's southern docks, whereas the Liverpool Link was conceived much later and didn't open until 2009.

 

And I think the Albert Dock entrance is rather further from the open sea than Brunswick, so which is the more 'inland' waterway?

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2 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Not really. Since Brunswick lock was opened in 1987 as part of the new Brunswick Dock Marina which was part of the redevelopment of Liverpool's southern docks, whereas the Liverpool Link was conceived much later and didn't open until 2009.

 

And I think the Albert Dock entrance is rather further from the open sea than Brunswick, so which is the more 'inland' waterway?

 

Easy, my original stance was that neither was on the list, and now neither is! 

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On 21/05/2022 at 10:03, magpie patrick said:

 

To describe what I was looking for is difficult, but roughly "locks built in the modern era to a traditional design using modern materials and techniques" - the main emphasis is "modern era", at least in part to compare with any locks that might be built in the near future - "here's one we did earlier" kind of thing

Using that definition, where does this lock at Kidsgrove fit. It was completely rebuilt because of subsidence, but using concrete instead of brick. I suspect it was done by local canal labour as it almost exactly replicates what was there before.

Kidsgrove 716.jpg

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3 hours ago, Pluto said:

Using that definition, where does this lock at Kidsgrove fit. It was completely rebuilt because of subsidence, but using concrete instead of brick. I suspect it was done by local canal labour as it almost exactly replicates what was there before.

Kidsgrove 716.jpg

 

I've been through that but knew nothing of the history other than it was obviously substantially rebuilt, I'd agree it is a (very good) pastiche of the original locks on this length. I must have a closer look sometime 

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17 hours ago, buccaneer66 said:

It falls outside the time period I suggested but in every other respect yes. I knew this lock well as a teenager, and I didn't know until recently why the old chamber was present. 

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On 23/05/2022 at 09:15, Pluto said:

Using that definition, where does this lock at Kidsgrove fit. It was completely rebuilt because of subsidence, but using concrete instead of brick. I suspect it was done by local canal labour as it almost exactly replicates what was there before.

Kidsgrove 716.jpg

Thus we go back round to Thurlwood  Steel Lock.  Fails under same lock site site ruling?  Good spot  though.  I  cant put a date on the work

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  • 3 weeks later...

Several of the original turf sided locks on the Kennet navigation where rebuilt. Some of them had a new lock constructed in sheet piling immediately upstream of the original so you boat through the turf sided chamber as you leave the lock going down. The one below Aldermaston and another above Burghfield spring to mind.

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10 hours ago, AndrewGVT said:

Several of the original turf sided locks on the Kennet navigation where rebuilt. Some of them had a new lock constructed in sheet piling immediately upstream of the original so you boat through the turf sided chamber as you leave the lock going down. The one below Aldermaston and another above Burghfield spring to mind.

Good call! I'd forgotten those even though I pointed them out to Sara as we went through them four years ago - Towney and Burghfield (and possibly others) have moved their own length upstream. 
 

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