Fossdyke canal ?

[b0atman]

Is the Fossdyke a canal if it is then surely it is the oldest canal in Britain ?

[Lockie Junior]

Oldest navigable one I believe. Built by the romans.

[Naughty Cal]

It is a canal but it has watercourses flowing into it so water levels do fluctuate.

 

As with many of the roads in the locality, you can see the roman influence. I don't think they liked corners

[Alan de Enfield]

It is a canal but it has watercourses flowing into it so water levels do fluctuate.

 

As with many of the roads in the locality, you can see the roman influence. I don't think they liked corners

 

Its the same with the roads - they built them straight to stop any immigrants from opening 'corner shops'

[RLWP]

That can't be right - they were the immigrants!

 

Richard

[Alan de Enfield]

That can't be right - they were the immigrants!

 

Richard

 

Well then "the other immigrants"

As I'm sure you know the 'old' joke actually named the 'race' of immigrants but in todays PC world its probably better not to.

[b0atman]

So why is the Bridgewater given this distinction ?

[Barry]

Perhaps because it was the first of the modern canals

[Mac of Cygnet]

Could the Fossdyke be accessed from the Trent when built, and if so, how? When were locks invented?

[Naughty Cal]

Perhaps it was only used when the tides were high enough with say a cill to hold the water in the ditch.

[Alan de Enfield]

Could the Fossdyke be accessed from the Trent when built, and if so, how? When were locks invented?

 

From Wikkipedia :

 

The Foss Dyke was long thought to have been constructed by the Romans around 120 AD.^[6] Pointers include an inscribed statuette of the god Mars found in it at Torksey, which is now in the British Museum,^[7] but there is a lack of consensus among authors writing on the subject.

The first record of it comes from Symeon of Durham, whose Historia Regium notes the following for the year 1121:

"In the same year, king Henry cut a large canal from Torksey to Lincoln, and by causing the River Trent to flow into it, he made it navigable for vessels."^[8]

[Pluto]

If you go to my web page http://www.mikeclarke.myzen.co.uk/canals.htm there is an overview of the early development of locks in pdf format. Much of what is written about canal history tends to be poorly researched, and the best general histories are either Edward Paget-Tomlinson's History, or Hadfield's The Canal Age, a much undervalued book, but high on my list of those which anyone interested in canals should read. It certainly puts the early period into perspective. I have rarely found mistakes or poor interpretation made by either of these two authors, and I only wish I could say the same about others.

 

On the Fossdyke, it has been suggested that the current waterway actually runs parallel to the Roman one, of which little survives. Access was probably by a single stop gate, probably like the stop planks used today, the waterway only being accessible when the tidal level of the Trent was right. The Bridgewater was certainly an important early English canal, though there were several before, such as the Exeter Canal, and the Sankey was built as a canal, only under an Act for a navigation. One major reason for the Bridgewater's nomination as the first canal was our class system. Bridgewater came from the second most powerful family in the country, so people would always try to curry favour by promoting their work. In English terms, I would suggest that the Aire & Calder Navigation was the most important as it was the first successful waterway built by the new rising merchants, coal miners and mill owners, who were the key group behind almost all successful English canals. Most of the Canal Mania canals of the 1790s were a failure, mainly because they were finance by the London finance market who didn't, and still don't, understand money creation.

[hughc]

For an account of Roman pound locks in Britain read 'The Piercebridge Formula' by Raymond Selkirk. Regards HughC

[Pluto]

For an account of Roman pound locks in Britain read 'The Piercebridge Formula' by Raymond Selkirk. Regards HughC

But read it with a critical eye. It is hard to provide a definite answer when there are so few hard facts, and everyone can have a different view.

[b0atman]

greenie for pluto very informative

[Keeping Up]

 

 

From Wikkipedia :

 

The Foss Dyke was long thought to have been constructed by the Romans around 120 AD.^[6] Pointers include an inscribed statuette of the god Mars found in it at Torksey, which is now in the British Museum,^[7] but there is a lack of consensus among authors writing on the subject.

The first record of it comes from Symeon of Durham, whose Historia Regium notes the following for the year 1121:

"In the same year, king Henry cut a large canal from Torksey to Lincoln, and by causing the River Trent to flow into it, he made it navigable for vessels."^[8]

 

 

Was King Henry the founder member of WRG ?

[Peter X]

Could the Fossdyke be accessed from the Trent when built, and if so, how? When were locks invented?

 

According to the Wikipedia article on the Canal of the Pharaohs,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Suez_Canal

it was around 274/273 BC in Egypt.

 

Looking at Mike Clarke's website he is evidently a man who knows his subject, so I'm sure he'd be aware of that.

Maybe his article doesn't go into the efforts of the ancient Greeks and Romans that much because their locks are not considered to be proper locks like those developed in mediaeval Europe and China?

[Keeping Up]

When we had a holiday in Egypt we saw the remains of a canal from a quarry to the Nile, which was constructed about 1500 BC and had remained in commercial use until 1962 AD. It didn't have any locks though.

[Pluto]

 

According to the Wikipedia article on the Canal of the Pharaohs,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Suez_Canal

it was around 274/273 BC in Egypt.

 

Looking at Mike Clarke's website he is evidently a man who knows his subject, so I'm sure he'd be aware of that.

Maybe his article doesn't go into the efforts of the ancient Greeks and Romans that much because their locks are not considered to be proper locks like those developed in mediaeval Europe and China?

One problem is to decide exactly what a lock is, which is why I looked at the various possible sources of lock technology, such as flood protection and military use, as well as navigation. On the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians, and not forgetting the water control structures in Mesopotamia, which could be the earliest such man-made structures, the difficulty is in deciphering what is being described in historic texts. Until the nineteenth century, locks and the like were built by practical people, with little in the way of academic education. However, they are described by educated people, who have little practical knowledge, which makes most early descriptions very vague. Looking at descriptions from Holland and the Low Countries, and Italy, where there were some of the most important early lock sites, there can be great difficulty in deciding exactly what is being described as many obscure terms are used which have no direct translation into their modern language, let alone a foreign language. All modern descriptions of such structures by modern historians should not be regarded as factual, as they are all based on that individual's perspective, which, after all, is what history is about - there are few certainties.