View of Muirtown Locks lock gates from N

Description View of Muirtown Locks lock gates from N

Date 1983

Catalogue Number A 57635

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 804773

Scope and Content Muirtown Locks, Caledonian Canal, Inverness, Highland, from north This shows one of a series of four locks, finished in 1809, which are known as Muirtown Locks. The boat travelling through the lock highlights the scale of the structure and the black- and white-painted bollard (right foreground) would have been used to secure boats in the adjacent lock. The pedestrian walkway (left foreground) tops a lock gate for this lock. The construction of these locks was a difficult engineering task which involved the lowest lock being constructed first and the highest two being constructed last. Stone used in the construction was shipped to the pier at Clachnaharry and brought by horse-drawn wagons along a tramway from a nearby quarry. The Caledonian Canal was designed by Thomas Telford (1757-1834) and built between 1803 and 1822 at a cost of £840,000. It was the first example of a transport network funded by the government in Great Britain. The 96.5km-long canal provides a route for boats travelling between the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean as it runs from the Beauly Firth at Clachnaharry, Inverness, to Loch Linnhe at Corpach. Only 35.4km of this length is man-made while the other 61km runs through four lochs: Loch Dochfour, Loch Ness, Loch Oich and Loch Lochy. Unfortunately, at 4.2m deep, the canal was too small for most sea-going ships which led to it being altered and deepened between 1844 and 1847. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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