Louthing Around - a brief tour of the Louth Canal

[magpie patrick]

I was fortunate enough to spend the weekend with some members of the Louth Navigation Trust, for those who don't know, Louth is a market town in the top right hand corner of Lincolnshire, and it once had a canal that connected it to the Humber Estuary some 11 miles distant near Tetney. Opened around 1770, closed in 1924. I'll post a few pics at a time, lets start with Alvingham Lock. 

 

There were 8 locks including the sea lock at Tetney - the other seven were all in the top 4 miles of canal, getting closer and closer together as the canal approached Louth. Alvingham was the second from bottom, and was built a few years earlier than the five above it as the canal finished here for a few years (1766-1770?) 

Note the unusual construction with four bays, or barrels as they are termed locally, rather than straight sides

 

 

Evidence of ground paddles that were later block off and of the bywash

The Louth Canal is the canalised River Lud, but the Lud isn't a very big river, so the canal has now not far off swallowed it whole

 

These pics were taken with a proper camera, I don't know whether any of the readers can tell the difference but it did feel good to use a camera again instead of my phone!

[Morris]

Thank you for sharing - we used to live near Louth but had no idea this was there! We will have to go back for a visit and explore.

[Derek R.]

Ths scolloped side walls are reminiscent of some on the Canal du Midi.

[Athy]

Is the Trust's aim restoration or simply conservation?

[Pluto]

The curved walls on Canal du Midi locks were only introduced after the lock into/out of the Garonne collapsed very soon after construction. It was on the first section of canal to be built, and the locks through Toulouse, built at the same time, have straight side walls. The reason for the collapse was that the lock had been built on the river's flood plain, and they had not made adequate provision for the lack of a solid foundation to build upon. A curved side wall was used as it was thought that the main force on the wall was from the land side, as they did not appreciate that the water in the lock when full created a similar, but opposite, force. The Louth Canal locks are slightly different in that they have  several curved inverted sections along the chamber wall. I would suspect this was done because of the poor quality foundations, the canal crossing marshy land in the river valley it followed. Such locks, with a single or multiple curves to the chamber walls are very rare.

 

Locks with straight side walls usually have buttresses at the rear of the wall to strengthen them, and I have found a few drawings which show the rear of the wall to be puddled, the puddling at the upper end of the chamber wall being continued at right angles to the wall and connected with the main puddle in the canal trench. This certainly seems sensible as it would prevent the land behind the chamber wall becoming waterlogged and thus more likely to cause a wall failure, as at Gargrave two years ago.

[magpie patrick]

Ticklepenny Lock - named after a local family

 

Same arrangement with the bays - only Tetney Sea Lock and Outfen Lock (the lowest of the seven up to Louth) had straight walls. Ticklepenny Lock had a swing bridge over it which affected the middle bay - the bridge is now fixed. Ground paddle chambers still apparent here. 

 

 

 

31 minutes ago, Athy said:

Is the Trust's aim restoration or simply conservation?

 A bit of both - full restoration is an aspiration but not one with any obvious way of achieving it at the moment, but they would like to enhance the canal so more use can be made of both the towpath and the water

 

Louth Navigation Trust

 

15 minutes ago, Pluto said:

The Louth Canal locks are slightly different in that they have  several curved inverted sections along the chamber wall. I would suspect this was done because of the poor quality foundations, the canal crossing marshy land in the river valley it followed. Such locks, with a single or multiple curves to the chamber walls are very rare.

 

Thank you - I shall pass that on. 

 

The lock floors were (and still are) wooden frames with tongue and groove timber on top (pine?) 

[Tony Brooks]

3 hours ago, Derek R. said:

Ths scolloped side walls are reminiscent of some on the Canal du Midi.

 

Is not one of the Kennet Navigation (K&A) locks like that, brick built with scalloped walls?

[Derek R.]

1 hour ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Is not one of the Kennet Navigation (K&A) locks like that, brick built with scalloped walls?

Yes, there was a thread on that a short while back. Forgotten the lock name.

[magpie patrick]

1 hour ago, Derek R. said:

Yes, there was a thread on that a short while back. Forgotten the lock name.

Aldermaston

 

Many of the turf sided locks were scalloped up to the lower water line, most are now lost as they were completely replaced

[Pluto]

I took this one twenty years ago. The curved brickwork above the gate recess seems to suggest a place for a ground paddle, given that the bywash tunnel started a little further above the lock.

[magpie patrick]

Riverhead and the site of the top two locks - the warehouses and still at Riverhead but Louth and Keddington Locks have completely vanished, Louth replaced by a sluice that no longer operates and Keddington via a lot of rip-rap. Keddington was in a very poor state of repair and almost literally fell aprt a few years  ago - I think Louth lock fell to flood alleviation