On 6/8/06 19:54, "Mike Stevens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> --- In [email protected], Nick Atty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> I thought Braunston Stop was originally a stop lock - and I've seen
>> a photo of it being dug out in the 1930s (in Nicholson's IIRC).
>
> If that's the same photo I'm thinking of, ir purports to show the
> widening of the section of the Oxford Canal between Braunston Turn
> and Brunston Stop to Grand Junction standards.
>
> There are two questions in my mind :-
>
> 1. Was there a gauging stop at Braunston before the GJC came on the
> scene? (Quite likely, IMO)
>
> 2. When did the aforementioned wideneing take place? If at the time
> of the building of the GJC, the photography wasn't invented. In
> which case the most likely date is the 1930s, when the former Warwick
> Canals were widened by the new Grand Union Canal Company.
I've seen the photo, and my memory is that it was done as part of the 1930s
work.
Alan Faulkner's book 'The Grand Junction Canal' includes a pic of the stop lock
in existence. The author dates the photo at 1923. It clearly shows a single
gate shut across the canal at the near end of the lock (looking from the Grand
Junction direction). I can't see another gate at the far end, but couldn't say
for certain that there isn't one - it's just possible that you can't see it
because it's open.
>
>> After all, the GJ didn't, originally, have anything to do with their
>> water other than give it to the Oxford. When they built their back
>> pumping engine, they also built the reservoirs, and had specific
>> reservoir paddles on the bottom lock to divert the water there (the
>> reservoirs weren't connected to the canal like they are now).
>>
>> So I can't see any purpose being served by having a stop lock
>> there. So maybe it was just a gauging stop like Stretton.
>
> I can't fault that analysis.
There do seem to have been stop-locks built elsewhere (eg Hall Green) where
there didn't on the face of it seem to be any real chance of the new canal
nicking water from the existing one, as lockage water would always be coming in
from the newer canal.
Martin L
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