View from north east

Description View from north east

Date 18/2/2002

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number E 16479 CN

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 793078

Scope and Content Wyndford Sluice, Forth & Clyde Canal, North Lanarkshire, from north-east This shows Wyndford Sluice which was probably built in the late 18th century from droved ashlar blocks. The sluice has three voussoirs (arches formed with wedge-shaped stones) which are separated by two cutwaters. The smaller sluice on the right was probably built in the late 19th century to provide added protection from flooding. The sluice is a canal overflow and allows water to drain into Bonny Water which flows parallel to the canal at this point. The sluice also carries a road which runs beside the canal. Several overflows and sluices were built along the length of the canal to guard against the threat of it bursting its banks. The Forth & Clyde Canal was built between 1768 and 1790. It could have been completed sooner but funds ran out in 1777 and more money was not found by the government until 1784. John Smeaton (1724-92) was the designer and first chief engineer for the project. He was replaced in 1777 by Robert Mackell (d.1779), and in 1785 Robert Whitworth (1734-99) took over the building of the final section of the canal from Glasgow. When the canal was completed in 1790 it ran from the River Forth at Grangemouth, in the east, to Bowling on the River Clyde in the west of Scotland. The canal was linked to Edinburgh when the Union Canal was opened in 1822. The Forth & Clyde Canal was closed in 1963 and the Union Canal in 1965 and the construction of new roads meant that it was impossible for boats to travel along the full length of these watercourses. However, the £84.5m Millennium Link project enabled the canals to reopen in 2002. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/701608