Ryeford Double Locks
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Ryeford Double Locks by David Stowell as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Ryeford Double Locks
Image: © David Stowell Taken: 9 Jan 2008
These are the only staircase locks on the Stroudwater Canal and have quite a colourful history, mainly because they started to fall down not long after they were first constructed! They were designed by a local architect with no known previous canal experience. The canal company then sued him for the repairs however structural failures re-occurred on several subsequent occasions, the most recent being in 1980. In fairness to the original designer though, this last incident was mainly due to failure of an adjoining water main. The locks have been cleared of overgrowth and debris as restoration gets under way and hopefully modern (re)construction standards will result in a much more stable structure.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
51.739799
Longitude
-2.267875