[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > On Monday, September 10, 2007 7:53 PM [GMT+1=CET], > Keens, Graham, VF UK - Technology (RO) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I eased Jannock through the narrow ex-lock and then swung her > > right round to moor up at the water point to fill the tank. > I'm not sure it's actully an ex-lock, even though it looks like one. That > bit of cut was opened in living memory (well, in mine),although it was a > re-instatement of the original line before the other branch of the branh > through its own lock was built. But unless the levels were changed at some > time, I dont see how there could have been a lock where you;re taking about. > Well, unless it was a stop-lock to separate the waters of two different > canal companies. I don't recall offhand which company built the Kingswood > Branch. I seem to think it was the Stratford CC, in which case ths top lock > should have been at the Kingswood end rather than the Lapworth end. SO > parhaps the branch was built by the Warwick & Birmingham. Anybody know?
It's a complicated story, and if I remember rightly it goes something like this... The section of canal from Kings Norton to Lapworth was opened first, and the original Kingswood Branch was opened at the same time. There was no lock where the current Lock 21 is, and instead there was a lock of normal fall on the branch, where the 'ex lock' referred to above is. (of course it didn't appear as a branch at the time because the main line didn't carry on any further: the canal just turned sharp left and you were technically on the branch) This meant that as stipulated in the Act, a lock on the branch would send a lockful of water to the W&B every time a boat passed between the two canals. (a condition that the W&B co had managed to insist on, as they were the older canal and were powerful enough to insist on such things before they would support the new canal's bill) When the company came to continue the canal towards Stratford, instead of simply building a junction with the existing canal where it turned left to go on to the branch, they inserted what is now lock 21, lowered the length of canal from there to the junction, and reduced the branch lock to stop-lock height. In order to comply with the Act they had to provide two emptying paddles on the new lock, one for boats heading to or from Stratford which would empty into the pound below in the normal way, and one that had to be used by boats heading to or from the branch, which went into a long culvert that entered the branch beyond what was now the stop-lock. Presumably the lock keeper would ensure that the correct paddle was used. However the W&B co weren't satisfied. They pointed out that the Act specifically stated that there must be a lock on the branch which sent a lockful into their canal - not some complex arrangement of paddles, even if it had the same effect. So to comply with the letter of the law, the branch was diverted to join the main line one lock higher up via a new lock, and the old connection was blocked up until reopened in the 1990s. I think that's right... Martin L
