Google Earth Canal & River Map. (Canalmaponline)

[Leo No2]

11 hours ago, buccaneer66 said:

Normal feedback process is via the contact us button on the website, but I'm making notes of comments here as well.

Kathryn

Do you have a map showing the full extent of the tramway, what i have i got from the Blisworth village website.

The other tramway I'm trying to trace in that area is the Gayton to northampton tramway.

Chris

 

This is the best I can do for you.  It’s on the South Northants District Council website - I hope this reproduces properly. - It's page 2 that's interesting. 

Appendix 1.pdf

There's a bit that goes out towards Gayton on page 4 but that only goes as far as Candle Bridge on the outskirts of Blisworth - I have a contact whom I'll talk to about the tramway down into Northampton - he's not in the best of health so it may take a little time.

Edited November 18, 2017 by Leo No2

[Chris Lowe]

Thanks Kathryn 

It looks like it pretty much follows what became the tow path

[Chris Lowe]

Down to claydon top lock on the oxford canal so hopefully i'll have it done for next weekend & will be able to upload the locks & bridges & update northern loops.

 

[Chris Lowe]

Blisworth Hill Tramway updated.

[Leo No2]

On 19/11/2017 at 21:15, buccaneer66 said:

Thanks Kathryn 

It looks like it pretty much follows what became the tow path

Thank you so much for updating the map.  Technically it doesn't follow the towpath as the current permissive towpath crosses the canal at Lock 14 (Stoke Bruerne Top) and follows the western side of the Stoke Bruerne flight until it gets to Lock 20 (Bottom Lock) but you can walk down the eastern side easily enough.  It may well have followed the line of the plateway railway originally but the access under the A508 bridge on the eastern side is very narrow and low now - maybe since the bridge was build in, I understand, the 1930s. The A508 bridge can be used as a turnover bridge to get you onto the western side of the canal without the need to cross the (now very busy) A508.  The A508 was a turnpike road and I imagine the plateway may well have crossed it in the early days - David Blagrove was always my source of 'I think/I imagine' but sadly no longer with us.

[Pluto]

I have just been going through the Baxter tramway collection held by the RCHS, and this is a plan of the Blisworth tramway drawn by Charles Hadlow in 1958.

[Derek R.]

That's interesting. Lock 20 is the bottom lock in the flight, and of course the old Northampton Road would not have the bridge that is there today, and the locks would have been narrow ones. The tramway would have been built before the flight had been finished and accommodated transhipment of goods from the bottom of the flight. Logical really, though I do wonder why the word "probable" has been included. It would have also run on the 'offside' for the length from beside the top lock to the bottom.

Edited November 27, 2017 by Derek R.

[Ray T]

7 minutes ago, Derek R. said:

That's interesting. Lock 20 is the bottom lock in the flight, and of course the old Northampton Road would not have the bridge that is there today, and the locks would have been narrow ones. The tramway would have been built before the flight had been finished and accommodated transhipment of goods from the bottom of the flight. Logical really, though I do wonder why the word "probable" has been included.

Please correct me if I am wrong but I was under the impression the Grand Junction Canal had double locks from its inception.

From David Blagroves At the Heart of the Waterways:

Building began at Braunston, Brentford and Uxbridge during May 1739.......

Starting from the junction with the Oxford Canal, after about a third of a mile, the canal began to ascend the valley by means of six locks, each one being double the width of an Oxford Canal lock.

Edited November 27, 2017 by Ray T

[Derek R.]

That's probably correct when originally built (I haven't checked my Faulkners) but looking at the OS 6" for 1892 - 1905 maps show weirs where a second lock may have been, though some show none.

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17&lat=52.1389&lon=-0.9130&layers=168&b=1

On a second look, They may well have been wide locks from inception. I'm probably thinking of the widening in the thirties further North. Must read up some more.

 

Ian and Ray are correct of course - designed to be 14' 6" in width with double locks.

Edited November 27, 2017 by Derek R.
Correcting an assumption

[IanM]

The Stoke Bruerne flight was definitely twin wide locks during some point in its life hence the double bridge (and two lock chambers for that matter) at the top lock.

Stoke Bruerne Village At War 2016 by Ian, on Flickr

Edited November 27, 2017 by IanM

[ditchcrawler]

6 hours ago, IanM said:

The Stoke Bruerne flight was definitely twin wide locks during some point in its life hence the double bridge (and two lock chambers for that matter) at the top lock.

Stoke Bruerne Village At War 2016 by Ian, on Flickr

And dont forget they had that old weighing machine in the disused top lock. Lots of the other double bridges are still there 

 

[alan_fincher]

My understanding is that for the brief period the locks at Stoke Bruerne were duplicated, each of the pair was a broad lock capable of holding 2 narrow boats.

This differs from what was done in a similar time-frame for the locks at Marsworth, and north to the Stoke Hammond area, where it is recorded, (and the evidence still firmly exists), that the duplicated locks were only single ones, (the originals of course always having been double).

The histories record that these arrangements didn't last long, (from memory only about 10 years in each case, I think - the closures more or less linked to the date the London to Birmingham railway opened, and by which date traffics were already in decline).

I seem to recall that the surviving top lock at Stoke Bruerne is not the original but the duplicate, and that the original lock is the now dry one with the boat hulk dumped in it.  That would explain the strange alignment going uphill into that lock.  (I may be remembering wrong though!).

[Pluto]

I don't have details of the number of locks, but I did find this drawing in the archives in Vienna, one of a series done by Sebastien von Maillard when he visited English canals in 1795. I have just translated his book on canal building, where he advocates narrow canals and which I hope to get published next year. He built the Wienner Neustadt Canal around 1800 which is, in effect, and English narrow canal. In the archive there are also drawings of Coventry Canal narrow boats showing their construction in detail, so probably the earliest drawings of narrow boats surviving. On the lock drawing, notice that the hollow quoins are made from wood.

[Ray T]

Spoke to Mike H today and he said as far as he is aware the Stoke Bruerne flight was only ever one set of double locks. He suggested the disused lock at the top of the flight was a dry dock. 

Edited November 28, 2017 by Ray T

[IanM]

5 minutes ago, Ray T said:

Spoke to Mike H today and he said as far as he is aware the Stoke Bruerne flight was only ever one set of double locks. He suggested the disused lock at the top of the flight was a dry dock. 

They were definitely doubled at some point.

You can even see the coping stones and slight depression in the ground where the duplicate lock was at the 2nd lock down.  

[Scholar Gypsy]

I think this thread is getting confused between two concepts

1) narrow (7') and wide (14') locks

2) single and double locks - ie whether there was one lock at a given location or two, side by side. 

Surely all the Grand Junction was built with  wide locks, with the exception of the Northampton and Aylesbury arms which are narrow.

And there were some locations eg Stoke Hammond, other places where dual arch bridges  were built, where there may have been double locks?

Edited November 28, 2017 by Scholar Gypsy

[Ray T]

1 hour ago, IanM said:

They were definitely doubled at some point.

You can even see the coping stones and slight depression in the ground where the duplicate lock was at the 2nd lock down.  

I don't know but a suggestion, from David Blagrove's Two Centuries of service?

[Chris Lowe]

Can we bring this thread back on topic with regards feedback on my map, although the tramway map is very relevant thanks.

But does anyone have info about the Gayton to Northampton tramway?

chris

 

[Chris Lowe]

I'll be updating this soon, I had a bit of a rest from doing it.

The main update will be the Oxford canal, but also a Viking canal.

[Chris Lowe]

Oxford canal features now added to the map, I'm doing the Lee & Stort next if anyone has anything to add.

[Chris Lowe]

Trying to map the Bow Back rivers and it isn't easy easy.

[Scholar Gypsy]

There  is a reasonably good CRT map. Some channels are no longer there e.g. pudding mill river was filled in for Olympics.  Three locks carpenters road, city mill,  three mills. 

[matty40s]

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by-side/#zoom=14.358474697596057&lat=51.5324&lon=-0.0133&layers=171&right=BingHyb

Iv'e been playing on this all day....

[Chris Lowe]

The NLS maps are very good for old routes, I use both those and the CRT maps, missing channels, locks and wharves to put back on the map for the bow back rivers.

[Chris Lowe]

Can anyone help with a decent map of the long gone Croyden canal, I have the route mapped fairly accurately but have no details of where locks and bridges used to be?

thanks

Chris