View of lock and house Digital image of IN 1160.

Description View of lock and house Digital image of IN 1160.

Date 27/4/1946

Collection Records of Ian Gordon Lindsay and Partners, architects, Edinburgh, Scotland

Catalogue Number SC 804863

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of IN 1160

Scope and Content Lock-keeper's house, Banavie Locks, Caledonian Canal, Highland This shows the lock-keeper's house at Banavie. In front of the three-bayed building can be seen part of 'Neptune's Staircase', eight locks in a series of 29 at this point on the canal. The lock-keeper would have had 18 lock gates to open, and the bowed central bay provided a panoramic view of the locks. Prior to the locks being mechanised in the mid-20th century, 12 men were responsible for opening lock gates by rotating capstans by hand. This was a time-consuming process and queues of boats often formed. In 1870 there were at least 512 east coast fishing boats using the locks because fishermen were trying to reach exceptionally large herring shoals which had been spotted in The Minch. The Caledonian Canal was designed by Thomas Telford (1757-1834) and built between 1803 and 1822 at a cost of £840,000. It was the first example of a transport network funded by the government in Great Britain. The 96.5km-long canal provides a route for boats travelling between the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean as it runs from the Beauly Firth at Clachnaharry, Inverness, to Loch Linnhe at Corpach. Only 35.4km of this length is man-made while the other 61km runs through four lochs: Loch Dochfour, Loch Ness, Loch Oich and Loch Lochy. Unfortunately, at 4.2m deep, the canal was too small for most sea-going ships which led to it being altered and deepened between 1844 and 1847. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/804863

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap