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Anybody Recognise This Lock?


alan_fincher

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More Coltishall stuff to enjoy http://www.broadlandmemories.co.uk/coltishallpostcards1.html

Looks like there was a little waterway behind the lock keeper's cottage which was good for the wherries.

 

Thank you for all your plaudits. There isn't a curtesying gif but take it that I have done so in acknowledgement! How did I find it? I'm an academic and all the research I did and learned to do now translates into finding things. With the internet anything is possible - if you use it well. The original picture had too much 'stuff' - the elegant lady, the mast of the wherry - so I cropped the photograph back to the roof with the gable end features and the chimney and fed that image into google with canal and lock and cottage as supporting words. And up it popped - well, amongst other images. So it was just then a question of finding the chimney! Simples ?

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2 hours ago, Athy said:

Not only impressive detective work, but impressive work by the long-forgotten (Edwardian?) photographer too. He's chosen an idyllic location, cottage with roses around the door etc., and the figure is positioned in just the right place to add interest and balance to his picture. It must have been taken before 1912, as the lock was apparently destroyed by a flood in that year and never worked again. The cottage was derelict by the late 1960s and has now gone - a great pity. Many people would pay good money for such a dwelling today.

If the lock was lost in 1912, then as you say, if anything the remarkable thing is that there is (atleast) two photos of it that have survived. 

 

Daniel

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1 hour ago, Jo_ said:

More Coltishall stuff to enjoy http://www.broadlandmemories.co.uk/coltishallpostcards1.html

Looks like there was a little waterway behind the lock keeper's cottage which was good for the wherries.

 

Thank you for all your plaudits. There isn't a curtesying gif but take it that I have done so in acknowledgement! How did I find it? I'm an academic and all the research I did and learned to do now translates into finding things. With the internet anything is possible - if you use it well. The original picture had too much 'stuff' - the elegant lady, the mast of the wherry - so I cropped the photograph back to the roof with the gable end features and the chimney and fed that image into google with canal and lock and cottage as supporting words. And up it popped - well, amongst other images. So it was just then a question of finding the chimney! Simples ?

Thanks for sharing that - every day is a school day!  

 

This is such an interesting thread. I thought it a very hard ask to expect identification (and I apologise to the serious historians for contaminating the thread with my little quip at the beginning), but not a bit of it.  Its remarkable (to me, anyway) how modern the building looks - not at all my picture of cottages of its vintage.  Maybe I ought to get myself way over to the east more often: I'm missing some treats.

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14 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

 

 

This is such an interesting thread.  It's remarkable (to me, anyway) how modern the building looks - not at all my picture of cottages of its vintage. 

 Isn't it just?

The chimney structure shows the age of the house: a central stack with three, possibly four, flues shows that it was built before there was any other form of heating (maybe a fireplace for the living room, one for the bedroom and one for the kitchen stove?) We lived in a Victorian lodge which was built in this way, outwards from the central stack, with the ends of the beams fitting into the sides of the stack. I'm not sure why they didn't catch fire!

 

The detail shows a similarity with Victorian railway architecture: the scalloped, if that's the word, barge boards and the finials would be found on many country stations and signal boxes.

 

Ditchcrawler raises another interesting point, about the lock beams. Were the curves there for a reason, or just for aesthetic effect?

Edited by Athy
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35 minutes ago, Athy said:

Ditchcrawler raises another interesting point, about the lock beams. Were the curves there for a reason, or just for aesthetic effect?

Raising the height of the business end of the balance beam would make it more comfortable to push on.

Edited by philjw
fat fingers
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1 hour ago, philjw said:

Raising the height of the business end of the balance beam would make it more comfortable to push on.

It would, and generally the business end of balance beams is at a sensible height to push - it does beg the question as to why the other end is so low though! I wonder if the gates originally didn't have beams at all? Also, there is almost no gap between the beam and the top plan of the gate

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4 hours ago, Jo_ said:

More Coltishall stuff to enjoy http://www.broadlandmemories.co.uk/coltishallpostcards1.html

Looks like there was a little waterway behind the lock keeper's cottage which was good for the wherries.

 

Thank you for all your plaudits. There isn't a curtesying gif but take it that I have done so in acknowledgement! How did I find it? I'm an academic and all the research I did and learned to do now translates into finding things. With the internet anything is possible - if you use it well. The original picture had too much 'stuff' - the elegant lady, the mast of the wherry - so I cropped the photograph back to the roof with the gable end features and the chimney and fed that image into google with canal and lock and cottage as supporting words. And up it popped - well, amongst other images. So it was just then a question of finding the chimney! Simples ?

You done good!

I'm still trying to contact the person from Australia who had had this come into their possession.  This is what was originally said about it......
 

Quote

I am trying to identify the person and the location of this photo. I think the location is somewhere along the Grand Union Canal, in or near Berkhampsted, at one of the locks. This is because I think the person is my great grandmother Sarah Muncey nee Hoar (b: abt 1847 in Hemel Hemstead). I have put a comparison photo of Sarah from a later picture with an extract of the woman in the photo. Sarah married William Muncey (b: 1840 in Great Berkhampsted). William's mother was Martha Mary Manton later Muncey, Waller then Brinklow! (b: Northchurch 1809). She, with her mother Martha Manton, was the innkeeper of the George Inn in Northchurch in the 1851 & 1871 census. I would appreciate any local knowledge to confirm the location, date and even the person if possible. Frustratingly, there is nothing at all on the back of the photo! I only know my sisters found it recently in our father's papers. Regards from Adelaide Australia!

 

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2 minutes ago, mark99 said:

Particular thanks from me too as you managed, by great research, to keep up and preserve my unique record of getting everything wrong in this forum.  :)

:clapping:

Looks as if my "Edwardian" suggestion may have been a few years askew too. If that lady is indeed Mrs. Muncey, she would have been about 64 when Edward VII came to the throne. 

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3 minutes ago, Athy said:

:clapping:

Looks as if my "Edwardian" suggestion may have been a few years askew too. If that lady is indeed Mrs. Muncey, she would have been about 64 when Edward VII came to the throne. 

But it looks as if the FB OP was completely wrong. He’s relying on a hopeful ID of the woman locating the lock on the GU which is just not so.

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5 minutes ago, BruceinSanity said:

But it looks as if the FB OP was completely wrong. He’s relying on a hopeful ID of the woman locating the lock on the GU which is just not so.

Not nesser-celery. After all, the snap was found amongst family papers, and the poster mentions comparing it with another of Mrs. Muncey and, I infer, seeing a likeness (though, as she is so swathed up, a comparison might not be easy.)

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If you have, (as I do) an archive of old photos, it is tempting to want to identify them all, and particularly to want to prove they are one of your forebears.

 

The reality is such collections tend to include quite a number of photos that show people who are simply not family at all - or not from the side of the family you thought they might be.

The enquirer knows the lady concerned was born in Hemel Hempstead then firmly linked to the Great Berkhampstead area, particularly Northchurch.

Whilst it is possible it is she sat by the River Bure in Coltishall, I think the very strong balance of probability is that it is not.

By pure coincidence my own Fathers family is very much from Hertfordshire, and my mothers from Norfolk.  If the suitcase of photos bequeathed to me by my mother has pictures that can be traced to Norfolk, then I am inclined to think anyone in them is more likely to belong to my mothers family than my fathers.  If this is a member of the family, I'd put money on it not being Mrs Muncey, unless they have any evidence that connects Mrs Muncey with Coltishall.

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Yes, and the balance of probability is that we shall never know who it and what her connection (if any) to the Muncey family was, unless the poster is prepared to join a site such as Ancestry which may provide clues..

 

Nonetheless, thank you for starting what to me is the best thread of the year so far, which has yielded fascinating information, has stayed resolutely on topic and - gasp! - has endured for 40 posts without a harsh word being written. You should start more of 'em!

 

 

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I'm convinced that Alan's lock and Jo's lock are the same one but am puzzled by something present in Alan's picture. I've circled what I took to be another ground paddle on the far side of the lock, but it isn't there in Jo's picture. I think Jo's picture is older, either that or someone has gone chopping the climbers from the cottage between the two. 

 

I don't think we'll know for sure, but did they add a ground paddle? Have I got the date the wrong way round and they removed one? (Removal more likely - leave the shutter in place but take the possibly rotten post away) or is it not a paddle?

 

I'm not that surprised at only one ground paddle, especially as it looks like it might be  fairly big one - just wonder where the other one's gone..

Coltishall Lock.jpg

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It was for me the thread of 2019 so far.

 

Had everything. Great photo, simple query, foxed a lot of people so a "gauntlet" thrown.

 

Thrashing about the memory box, looking up obscure canal images and best of all a resolution right at bedtime so no baggage taken to sleep.

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14 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

I'm convinced that Alan's lock and Jo's lock are the same one but am puzzled by something present in Alan's picture. I've circled what I took to be another ground paddle on the far side of the lock, but it isn't there in Jo's picture. I think Jo's picture is older, either that or someone has gone chopping the climbers from the cottage between the two. 

 

I don't think we'll know for sure, but did they add a ground paddle? Have I got the date the wrong way round and they removed one? (Removal more likely - leave the shutter in place but take the possibly rotten post away) or is it not a paddle?

 

I'm not that surprised at only one ground paddle, especially as it looks like it might be  fairly big one - just wonder where the other one's gone..

 

6 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

partly answering my own question - this photo clearly shows only one top paddle

That's a shame - I had pretty much convinced myself there *is* another paddle in Jo's picture, just covered in weeds/ivy - which fits your theory about removed paddlegear and suggests that your picture is the newest of the three.

 

Very bad zoom:

coltishall16_lockhouse_zoom.jpg.78cf1cb0bad632ddd1a4671a991c11c5.jpg

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1 minute ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

OK. I was correct! 

 

Here's a 1902 picture from http://www.broadlandmemories.co.uk/1900to1949gallery15.html

 

There are two sets of ground paddles at the head of the lock.

 

bensonj02_coltlock02.jpg

So there are! Splendid!

 

This thread has me so engrossed that I'm replying instead of going home from the office... 

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So that latest picture, of the boat (Norfolk wherry?) with its mast down shows us how the photo could have had a boat mast in it.

 

As to the date, I have a feeling that the lady is more Victorian than Edwardian, as there was a trend to bigger more elaborate hats after Edward came to the throne. But she might just have been old fashioned!

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