Digital image of E/16477/CN.

Description Digital image of E/16477/CN.

Catalogue Number SC 701774

Category On-line Digital Images

Scope and Content Wyndford Sluice, Forth & Clyde Canal, North Lanarkshire, from south-east This shows a swan swimming on the canal beside Wyndford Sluice which was probably built in the late 18th century. The sluice has three voussoirs (arches formed with wedge-shaped stones) and droved ashlar blocks. The top row of blocks has been curved and there appears to be the remains of a timber sluice gate beside the central arch. 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/701774

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap