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Widest & Deepest narrow locks. Where are they?


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19 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

Full length boats do not have to go backwards through any locks on the Crow. All fenders lifted front and back is required but on the BCN that’s not unique to the Crow.

Last time I was there a boater said his boat was too long to go up

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1 hour ago, ditchcrawler said:

Last time I was there a boater said his boat was too long to go up

 

I think that’s highly unlikely. For most boats coming down is more restrictive in any case; although it’s no consolation being able to get up if you can’t get back again.

 

Unless a boat is over 70’ long and has a near vertical stem post and square stern  it will fit.

 

The Severner Willow made it up and down and I think that’s longer than 71’ 6”. It did come down backwards which may or not have been necessary in all locks but probably would have been in no. 5 which is the shortest and does require some precise positioning with an ex-GUCCCo boat.

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  • 1 month later...

Just been reading “ Tardebigge and the Worcester and Birmingham canal” , The memoirs of George Bate B.E.M. In 1969-70. These were first published as 13 instalments in Tardebigge Parish Magazine. 
 

Of Tardebigge top lock he notes “This lock ,No. 58, is said to be the deepest canal lock in the country for Narrow Canals having a depth of 20 foot from coping level to bottom” 

 

It’s an interesting read overall. 

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6 minutes ago, Stroudwater1 said:

Just been reading “ Tardebigge and the Worcester and Birmingham canal” , The memoirs of George Bate B.E.M. In 1969-70. These were first published as 13 instalments in Tardebigge Parish Magazine. 
 

Of Tardebigge top lock he notes “This lock ,No. 58, is said to be the deepest canal lock in the country for Narrow Canals having a depth of 20 foot from coping level to bottom” 

 

It’s an interesting read overall. 


It may be a good read but that bit isn’t correct. If you take all the other 29 locks in the flight as 7’ deep) which is standard for W&B locks on the flights at Offerton, Astwood, Stoke and Tardebigge) then it leaves 11’ for the top lock and that’s about what it looks.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:


It may be a good read but that bit isn’t correct. If you take all the other 29 locks in the flight as 7’ deep) which is standard for W&B locks on the flights at Offerton, Astwood, Stoke and Tardebigge) then it leaves 11’ for the top lock and that’s about what it looks.

 

 


Ah well he prefaces that by stating that the first structure at the top was “a lift for the drop of 14 foot.” He was pretty authoritative in that his great Uncle, uncles and father were all employees of the Canal Authority. 

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On 10/02/2023 at 12:38, Stroudwater1 said:

Of Tardebigge top lock he notes “This lock ,No. 58, is said to be the deepest canal lock in the country for Narrow Canals having a depth of 20 foot from coping level to bottom” 

Coping level to bottom is greater than the lock fall by the sum of the height of the coping above top water level and the depth of the invert below the lower water level.

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3 hours ago, David Mack said:

Coping level to bottom is greater than the lock fall by the sum of the height of the coping above top water level and the depth of the invert below the lower water level.

To take an extreme example, Castle Mills on the Great Ouse near Bedford has a fall of around 8' in normal river conditions, but there's another 8' of wall above the water level even when full (arguably it's a candidate for this list: as well as having 16' of ladder, it's a 'narrow' lock that can't fit narrowboats side by side but it's over 13' wide!)

 

Tardebigge Top Lock is pretty normal at the top with only a foot or so of coping though: can't see how anyone could conclude it was 20' deep unless they were measuring from the upper storey of the lock cottage or the roof of the tunnel or something

 

 

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1 hour ago, enigmatic said:

To take an extreme example, Castle Mills on the Great Ouse near Bedford has a fall of around 8' in normal river conditions, but there's another 8' of wall above the water level even when full (arguably it's a candidate for this list: as well as having 16' of ladder, it's a 'narrow' lock that can't fit narrowboats side by side but it's over 13' wide!)

 

Tardebigge Top Lock is pretty normal at the top with only a foot or so of coping though: can't see how anyone could conclude it was 20' deep unless they were measuring from the upper storey of the lock cottage or the roof of the tunnel or something

 

 

12 ft fall, 2 ft to the coping, 6 ft from lower water level to the bottom of the invert can't be far off.

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20’ would be about right for the overall height of the bottom gates at the mitre.

 

There’s a picture of the bottom end of the lock on Wikipedia (which incidentally also says it’s 11’ deep).

 

There’s approx 45 courses of brickwork from beneath the coping stones to the water level. With standard brick sizes that correlates to 11’ and even if they are   2 and 5/8 inch large engineering bricks with say half inch mortar beds it still only correlates to 12’ 6”. I think 11’ is about right for the fall.
 

The author seems to be referring to something a little different though; which I admit I didn’t pick up on before I first responded.

Edited by Captain Pegg
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