Oblique aerial view showing Neptune's Staircase, Banavie Swing Bridge and Banavie Railway Swing Bridge

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 36762

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 804849, SC 1676114

Scope and Content Aerial view of Banavie Locks, Caledonian Canal, Highland This aerial view shows eight of the series of 29 locks at Banavie, where ships had to be raised a vertical height of almost 19m in a distance of almost half a kilometre. Nicknamed 'Neptune's Staircase', these locks were built in a ladder formation, composed of 152m of solid masonry. There were often bottle-necks at this point on the canal, as it is very narrow, and only one ship could use it at a time. Prior to the locks being mechanised in the mid-20th century, 12 men were responsible for opening lock gates by rotating capstans by hand. This was a time-consuming process and queues of boats often formed. In 1870 there were at least 512 east coast fishing boats using the locks because fishermen were trying to reach exceptionally large herring shoals which had been spotted in The Minch. 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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