View from North-East Digital image of B/55495

Description View from North-East Digital image of B/55495

Date 8/1991

Catalogue Number SC 792962

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of B 55495

Scope and Content Wyndford Lock-keeper's Cottage, Forth & Clyde Canal, North Lanarkshire, from north-north-east This shows the c.1770 lock-keeper's cottage with the bridge over the canal (left) and part of the two-storeyed former stables and hostelry in the background. The three-bayed cottage is two-storeyed on the north side (seen here), but, because the building is built on a slope, the south front is single-storeyed. This ruinous building was restored along with the lock in the 1990s. Lock-keepers' cottages were located beside many of the locks on the canal and were occupied by the canal worker and his family who opened and closed the lock. The stables were where the horses which were used to pull the 'lighters' (barges) were fed, watered and rested. The inn was a centre for information and refreshment for canal users and was also where transactions would be made regarding the cost of hiring horses. There was also accommodation available in some of the larger buildings. 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/792962

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap