Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders

This impressive flight of five locks, Locks 21 to 25, dropping the canal 40 ft from its summit level to immediately

east of Kelvin Aqueduct, was built at the same time by Gibb & Muir, also under Whitworth’s direction. The lock

dimensions basically conformed to Smeaton’s practice. As at Camelon they were designed singly so as to ‘treasure up’ at least a lock full of water in the basin between each lock enough to accommodate more than one vessel for flexibility in use.

On the north bank off the basin below Lock 22 is Kelvin Dock, a small dry dock which for many years was used for shipbuilding and repairs.

R Paxton and J Shipway 2007

Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Lowlands and Borders' with kind permission of Thomas Telford Publishers.