Lock chamber, view from WNW Digital image of E/6487/cn

Description Lock chamber, view from WNW Digital image of E/6487/cn

Date 18/9/2001

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

Catalogue Number SC 790829

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of E 6487 CN

Scope and Content East Lock (Lock 38), Bowling Upper Canal Basin, Forth & Clyde Canal, West Dunbartonshire, from west-north-west This shows the eastern lock gates (background) and part of the large metal balance beam (foreground) which opens one of the western lock gates of the c.1896 lock. The large steel lock gates are late 20th-century additions and replace the original gates which would have been made of wood. Boats would have been secured onto the white-painted mooring rings on each side of the channel. There are 39 locks on the Forth & Clyde Canal and each one is almost 21m long and 6m wide with an average water rise of 2.4m. The boat would move into the centre of the lock and water would either be added or drained till the water level was at the desired level for the boat to continue its journey. 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/790829

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap