Archaeology Notes
Event ID 810669
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/810669
NH64NW 30.03 6481 4661 to 6451 4672
For Clachnaharry Sea-lock (adjacent to NW), see NH64NW 28.00.
For Clachnaharry Railway Swing Bridge (adjacent to NW), see NH64NW 33.
For Muirtown (Canal) Basin (to SE), see NH64NE 120.00.
Includes information from cancelled Oracle site NH64NW 35.
Telford was forced to extend the canal on artificial embankments in order to reach deep water, as the Beauly Firth shoreline shelves very gradually. It was a major engineering feat on the canal and Telford's expertise is recorded on the back wall of the former canal offices in the words of the poet Southey. these start:-
'Telford it was by whose presiding mind
The whole great work was planned and perfected.'
A Burton 1983.
The creation of this basin was a major achievement by the canal builders, who built up two enormous parallel embankments reaching out 400 yards into the soft mud at the edge of the Beauly Firth. The purpose of this engineering feat was to take the canal out into deep water. The embankment, resting on a base of quarry waste, was used for digging out the sea lock (NH64NW 28.00). The sea breaking through at one stage, due to the fact that hand pumps were insufficient to cope with the water pressure, hampered operations. However, the use of six horses or the more expensive equivalent power in a steam pump did counteract the problem and control the works until the lock was completed. However, the whole construction requires constant vigilance and timely repairs, such as those carried out on the foreworks in the 1920s.
G Hutton 1992.
Caledonian Canal, sea lock basin.
CFA/MORA Coastal Assessment Survey 1998
This feature is clearly visible on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Inverness-shire 1874, sheet iv), on the 2nd edition of the OS 6-inch map (Inverness-shire 1907, sheet iv), on the current edition of the OS 1:10000 map (1985) and on the OS Basic Scale raster map (ND).
Information from RCAHMS (MD) 4 October 2001.
This basin has been formed by the construction of flanking embankments, which extend the canal out beyond the shallow waters that fringe the Beauly Firth into the deeper water beyond. It thus differs fundamentally from the adjacent (to SE) Muirtown Basin (NH64NE 120.00), which was dug out.
It is depicted (but not noted) on the 1963 edition of the OS 1:2500 map.
Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 31 March 2006.
