Oblique aerial view showing Neptune's Staircase, Banavie Swing Bridge and Banavie Railway Swing Bridge.
A 36759
Description Oblique aerial view showing Neptune's Staircase, Banavie Swing Bridge and Banavie Railway Swing Bridge.
Date 1985
Collection RCAHMS Aerial Photography
Catalogue Number A 36759
Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images
Copies SC 1676111, SC 369051
Scope and Content Banavie Locks, Neptune's Staircase, Caledonian Canal, Inverness-shire The construction of the Caledonian Canal, 1803-22, through the Great Glen from Loch Eil to the Beauly Firth, Inverness-shire, was a great engineering achievement. It took 19 years and cost nearly £1million to build. Thomas Telford, the Scottish engineer, was employed directly by the Treasury to design it. The problem at Banavie was how to raise ships over 18m in a distance of 152m. The locks had to be built in a ladder formation - 152m of solid masonry. Robert Southey, a poet and a friend of Telford, described the locks at Banavie as the greatest work of art in Britain. However, there were practical problems. Bottle-necks were caused as only one ship could use it at a time. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.
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