Scanned image of oblique aerial photograph

Description Scanned image of oblique aerial photograph

Date 26/6/1960

Catalogue Number SC 799237

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Scope and Content RAF aerial photograph of the Union Canal, Falkirk This oblique aerial view from 1960 shows the site of the eleven locks which connected the two canals. Three locks are shown on the Forth & Clyde Canal which runs across the middle of the photograph. Port Downie basin was originally located in the square-shaped piece of land which is behind Lock 16 (centre right). From this basin eleven locks were spaced along the broad curling avenue which ascends around the houses and under the viaduct (top) to the Union Canal in the background. Houses and industrial buildings of Camelon, Falkirk are in the foreground. The Union Canal followed the contours of the hills which meant that the only locks on it were at the junction with the Forth & Clyde Canal. Between 1946 and 1949 the Royal Air Force undertook a vertical aerial photographic survey of the whole of Scotland. This survey has been updated by photographs taken by the RAF between 1950 and 1983 which include many oblique photographs of towns and villages in Scotland. These images provide an excellent comparison with more recent photographs of the same sites. The Forth & Clyde Canal, built between 1768 and 1790, ran from the River Carron, near Falkirk, in the east, to Bowling in the west of Scotland. The Union Canal, built between 1817 and 1822, ran from Port Downie, Falkirk, to Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. Eleven locks which rose 33.5m in a distance of 0.8km connected the two canals. The Union Canal was closed in 1965, two years after the Forth & Clyde Canal, and the locks were largely buried and landscaped in the 20th century. 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. The Falkirk Wheel, opened by Her Majesty The Queen in 2002, was part of this project and re-established the link between the two canals. It was designed and built by a team which included the combined building contractors of Morrison-Bachy-Soletanche with specialist advice from Ove Arup Consultants, Butterley Engineering and R M J M Architects. Constructed on the site of an abandoned opencast mine at a cost £17m, the rotating boat-lift can move boats from one canal to another. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

External Reference P 543/RAF/996, 0027

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/799237

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap