Inverness, Caledonian Canal, Muirtown Locks
Lock(S) (Post Medieval)
Site Name Inverness, Caledonian Canal, Muirtown Locks
Classification Lock(S) (Post Medieval)
Canmore ID 13331
Site Number NH64NE 119.04
NGR NH 6525 4559
NGR Description NH 6522 4551 to NH 6533 4574
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/13331
- Council Highland
- Parish Inverness And Bona
- Former Region Highland
- Former District Inverness
- Former County Inverness-shire
NH64NE 119.04 6522 4551 to 6533 4574
Locks [NAT]
OS 1:10,000 map, 1992.
This is a set of four locks, which were re-opened as a mechanised series in September 1963. The original lock-gates had been replaced between 1890 and 1906 by new ones constructed from oak and steel.
J Lindsay 1968.
At the bottom of this flight of four locks is a swing bridge (NH64NE 143) and just to the N of this stretches the large Muirtown Basin (NH64NE 120.00).
G Hutton 1992.
This series of four locks is clearly marked as Muirtown Locks on the 1st edition of the OS 6-inch map (Inverness-shire 1874, sheet xii) and on the 2nd edition of the OS 6-inch map (Inverness-shire 1906, sheet xii) and as Locks on the current edition of the OS 1:10000 map (1992) and on the OS Basic Scale raster map (ND).
Information from RCAHMS (MD), 3 October 2001.
Locks were emptied then renovated and repaired during the spring of 2004. Lock basins were exposed during this period and photographically recorded from the swing bridge by RCAHMS.
Visited by RCAHMS, 26 March 2004
Build (1808 - 1813)
Muirtown locks built.
Publication Account (2007)
(Institute Civil Engineers Historic Engineering Works no. HEW 0084/02)
Muirtown Locks
This flight of four locks, each 180 ft long and 40 ft wide about a mile south of Clachnaharry, raises the canal 32 ft from the basin at Muirtown to the Dochfour reach. They were built by Simpson & Cargill from 1808–13.
The present steel-plate girder swing-bridge at the foot of the flight and head of the basin carrying the A862 road was erected by Sir William Arrol & Co. in 1936. The previous crossing was by means of a cast-iron bridge with radial spandrel struts which still existed in 1892 (see view), but
whether this was the first one is not now known. It differed from the type surviving at Moy (see page 160).
R Paxton and J Shipway, 2007.
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Highlands and Islands' with kind permission from Thomas Telford Publishers.
