Rufford Branch Locks.

[Bod]

Whilst talking at a lock, as you do, I was shown very recent photos of a Lever operated ground paddle, and vertical mounted windlass ground paddle.

Somewhere in the deep spaces of my memory, I recall a topic on here that spoke about these, but I cannot find anything using the Forum search.

I seem to recall, there is a knack for these levers.

Can anyone enlighten me, or am I gaga ?

 

Bod

ps. I shall be on the Rufford tomorrow, so will find out the hard way.

[Tracy D'arth]

8 minutes ago, Bod said:

Whilst talking at a lock, as you do, I was shown very recent photos of a Lever operated ground paddle, and vertical mounted windlass ground paddle.

Somewhere in the deep spaces of my memory, I recall a topic on here that spoke about these, but I cannot find anything using the Forum search.

I seem to recall, there is a knack for these levers.

Can anyone enlighten me, or am I gaga ?

 

Bod

ps. I shall be on the Rufford tomorrow, so will find out the hard way.

L&L canal, Jack Cloughs and vertical screw paddles.

[Midnight]

The lever operated ground paddles are on the Leeds & Liverpool canal possibly unique as I've not seen them anywhere else. There is a bit of a knack but it's easier to demonstrate than describe. It's a bit like tossing the caber, especially for the ones that are a bit stiff. I can't remember seeing many of them on the north west side but you will certainly encounter many on the Yorkshire side. Don't forget to close them before opening the gates.

ETA
The vertical screw paddles are easy enough although the wooden housings tend to move a bit when you wind them up.

 

Edited May 24, 2022 by Midnight

[Bod]

Thanks to Tracy's Jack Cloughs, I found it!

 

I was right, there is a knack, lift and walk forward at the same time.

 

Bod

[magpie patrick]

There is a pair, out of use, on Newbury lock on the Kennet and Avon canal. The lock works on the gate paddles only these days.

 

You don't need to lower the levers before opening the gates, indeed to do so might mean the lock won't fill completely, but you can't really lower them with the gates open 

[Pluto]

With the lever type, you need to open them in one smooth movement. If you stop or slow down halfway, the lever will stick because of the flow of water. There used to be more of them used as ground paddles, and you can see the curved scoring on a number of lock walls when drained where there are now screw cloughs, also called box cloughs whenre encased in a wooden box. Jack cloughs are those which use a rack and gear for raising and lowering the paddle, just like a car or engineer's jack. The lever cloughs may have been called hanging cloughs originally. Each of the L&LC maintenance workshops made slightly different versions of all the types of cloughs.

There are several other terms used on the L&LC, and perhaps the other northern wide canals. The waterway between locks were always known as 'pools' rather than 'pounds', and swing bridges were always called 'swive'l bridges, with boats turning at 'whanning' holes.

[Bod]

Had to use one of the lever paddles today, there is a definite knack, keep lifting and walking, easy does it.

 

Bod

 

(Maybe I found the only easy one)

[jonathanA]

You have to sneak up on them and take them by surprise... I found pushing down initially lulled them into a false sense of security and then pull up firmly while walking forward...

 

So much easier then winding and no fiddly ratchet pawl's to mess with either...

[TheBiscuits]

On 24/05/2022 at 20:54, magpie patrick said:

You don't need to lower the levers before opening the gates, indeed to do so might mean the lock won't fill completely

 

If you just open the gates with the levers upright about half of them hit the lever and potentially break it.

 

The trick is to partially open the gates and then lower the levers - once there's a couple of feet gap at the mitre the lock will stay as full as it ever does ...