John Smeaton

[Pluto]

This year it is 300 years since the birth of John Smeaton, the first 'civil engineer'. He worked on several canals, most notably the C&HN. The Institute of Civil Engineers has a couple of blogs about some of his work at https://www.ice.org.uk/news-insight/news-and-blogs/ice-blogs/ice-community-blog/john-smeaton-influence-spans-from-nasa-to-hit-song and https://www.ice.org.uk/news-insight/news-and-blogs/ice-blogs/ice-community-blog/peep-into-smeaton-world-invention-of-copying-press. Not much about canals, but they are of interest.

I can add that this is a copy letter from the L&LC Foulridge office in 1919. Would it have been the first cycling permit for on the towpath?

[Cananalmaps]

Smeaton's carefully considered and concise reports were a model for future engineers.  This one for the Trent & Mersey Canal proposal is a good example.  Interesting that there is no mention of a tunnel at Harecastle.

[David Mack]

1 hour ago, Cananalmaps said:

Smeaton's carefully considered and concise reports were a model for future engineers.  This one for the Trent & Mersey Canal proposal is a good example.  Interesting that there is no mention of a tunnel at Harecastle.

Indeed. He refers specifically to a deep cutting across the summit. Presumably at a somewhat higher level than the tunnel was built.

[Ronaldo47]

A nice example of the old use of the printed  long letter "s" when it appears at the start of, and within, a word. It is sometimes said that "all the s's are f's" ,  but if you look closely, whereas in the letter "f",  the horizontal bar extends on both sides of the vertical stroke, in the long letter  "s" , the horizontal bar only extends to the left of the vertical stroke. 

Edited March 27 by Ronaldo47
typos

[Pluto]

The Smeaton/Brindley scheme does not appear to go further north than the Potteries. Note that he talks about fording places being 2ft 6in deep, with other documents published at this time suggest that the boat width would be 6 feet, the same as Brindley's boats using the Worsley mine tunnel. The use of fords instead of bridges could mean that flash locks were envisaged. However water mills were increasing in number and improving in design. 2 feet 6 ins depth would have been fine for the old undershot water wheel, but more efficient high breast water wheels were now beginning to be used, partly because of Smeaton's work on establishing the power from different types of wind and water mill. For a breast shot wheel, the fall would have to be at least five feet, and this would have meant that fords on a canal were not suitable, and chamber locks were required, making construction more expensive as bridges would also have to be used. The width of boat was increased to seven feet, half the width of many of the coastal and river boats of the time, on the basis that two narrow boats would fit into existing locks, such as on the Mersey & Irwell Navigation.

[Ian Mac]

59 minutes ago, Pluto said:

documents published at this time suggest that the boat width would be 6 feet

No No No
8ft Mr Brindley. The standard mantra when working on a 15hp Bolinder. Which is shoehorned into the engine room. It would also make the boatmans cabin on a wooden motorboat so much more accommodating.

[Cananalmaps]

22 hours ago, Pluto said:

"The use of fords instead of bridges could mean that flash locks were envisaged. "

This is unlikely.  With only 2' 6" of depth on the fords the maintenance of steady water levels would be essential - virtually impossible with  flash locks.

[Heartland]

Read my Trent & Mersey Book

Yes the intention was to go to the Potteries and to Lichfield.

 

There are other copies of Brindley's report

 

And this was a formative time for canals where fords were considered as a cost effective measure of construction

 

 

[Pluto]

3 hours ago, Cananalmaps said:

This is unlikely.  With only 2' 6" of depth on the fords the maintenance of steady water levels would be essential - virtually impossible with  flash locks.

But that is the point of flash locks, you do not have to keep steady-state conditions. Boats operate on the flash of water, travelling in groups. Midland entrepreneurs were much less sure about the returns from inland waterways, which was why they went for the seven foot wide boat, unlike the more confident Lancs and Yorks investors, who saw the need for 14 feet wide canals. In the initial planning, fords were planned for roads crossing the new canal in order to keep down costs, and I would suspect that it was only during discussion that this was abandoned in favour of the canals we know today. This could well have happened between the original suggestion for a canal from the Potteries to the Trent, and the extended schene to the Mersey. I have attached a page showing the dimensions of the boats.

[Cananalmaps]

13 minutes ago, Pluto said:

"But that is the point of flash locks, you do not have to keep steady-state conditions. Boats operate on the flash of water, travelling in groups"

 

That would be OK going downstream, but how would it work passing uphill - releasing the flash would make the upstream fords un-navigable until the levels recover?  Water consumption must also have been an issue.

 

 

[Pluto]

I have found the mention of fords, from the second edition of Brindley's 'History'. The best description of the operation of flash locks I have found is: Aufbau und Funktion einer historischen Stauschleuse in der Stecknitzfahrt, 

Patrick Keilholz und Bastian Albert , in Ifl vol.15, 2011, which has graphs showing the variation in river levels over time whilst a flash lock is in operation, attached below. J L Hogrewe, a Hanoverian engineer who wrote a book about English canals, published in 1780, had just produced plans for improving the Stecknitzfahrt at the request of George III. The ideas were not taken up, but Hogrewe did rebuild one of the flash locks, retaining its design as a flash lock. The French were also still building flash locks at this time.

2011 Aufbau und Funktion Dükerschleuse (dragged).pdf

[Heartland]

Does a ford have a base of stone etc for the road traffic to cross?

Fords were river crossings, which included navigations, and still exist in some places. Were there any cases of fords across canals.

In the early times of canal development there was the belief that a ford might be a cheaper option. How deep the ford might be is a matter for discussion though.

 

Some fords can be traced to roman times and others to medieval times.

 

Oxford is said to have been Oxen Ford.

 

Edited April 3 by Heartland

[Pluto]

The fords would have had 2 feet 6 inches of water. Fords today do seem often to have a weir immediately below them, which could create a less turbulent section of river, so less likely to damage the road surface. However, they are not navigable. The attached is a photo of part of J L Hogrewe's 1780 survey of the Stecknitzfahrt, held by the British Library, and shows the only flash lock I could find with an associated road. It is some distance below the flash lock, so may have become unpassable for some time whilst the flash lock was being discharged. Fortunately, those navigations which used flash locks tended to have low volumes of trade — the Stecknitzfahrt would only have a group of boats pass through the lock perhaps once or twice per week. Flash locks came in a variety of shapes and sizes, and it would depend upon expected river conditions and traffic, though all would have far fewer boats using them compared to the chamber locks on canals. However, the expected trade on early industrial canals was a mere fraction of what the carried by the late-19th century, so flash locks may have been considered originally. Had they been used, they most certainly would have been converted to chamber locks fairly rapidly.

Just to add, that the canal at the bottom of the plan was never built as such, and the flash locks only disappeared in the 1890s, when the Elbe-Lübeck Canal was built, with its wonderful Hottop Locks, where the power of water over an enclosed weir did all the work.