Foxton Locks. Market Harborough.

Monday 15th September 2014.  Foxton Locks.   

Mileage start 14208.  Finish 14305 = 97 miles.

Woo hoo, our second day trip of the weekend.  Once again it was quite warm and sunny so we decided that we would visit Foxton Locks.  They are a pretty iconic sight and I have seen lots of photos and wanted to visit for a while.  I can tell you it is well worth it.

Of course the first thing to do on arriving at any destination is to park up and get the kettle on!

 

Foxton Locks are a series of Locks on the Grand Union Canal. It is a staircase of 10 locks which is still in full use today to get the canal boats up and down a steep hill.  There is also the remains of the original inclined Plane Boat lift which is huge.

You can find out much more about the locks by visiting the website: Foxton Locks

Here are some of the days photos.

These were taken at the bottom where the Leicester Line and Harborough arm meet.

The Foxton Locks are the largest flight of staircase locks on the English canal system.  Work begun on them in 1810 and they opened in 1814

Here you can see the gate at the very bottom of the staircase.

This is about halfway up and we were lucky enough to be able to watch several boats negotiating the locks.  The staircase is in actual fact 2 staircases of 5 locks each as there is a kind of passing basin halfway up.  It takes around an hour for a narrow boat to either ascend or descend. 

 

 

The guy in the blue is the lock keeper.   You can see that this is comimg up to the half way point and that basin where the boats can pass  and also pause to wait their turn if it is busy.

We were lucky to actually see how it all works when 2 boats pass each other.  One going up and one going down.

In these photos you can see the side ponds where the water circulates around keeping the locks at their right levels.

Phew!  Finally we reached the top lock and the final gate.  It is quite a steep walk.  Having got there we decided to follow the trail which takes you along the canal a little way and then over a bridge to descend down the hill on the other side of the ponds.  

Someone thinks that the notice does not apply to them!

The trail takes you through a willow grove to a lookout point where you can see the old inclined Plane Boat lift.  Well the remains of it anyway!

 

 Someone thought that a shot of my behind would be amusing!

 

 

Apparently there are plans to restore the old inclined Plane lift even though it went into disuse after just 10 years because it was not economical. 

Foxton Locks was a brilliant day out and reminded us of the fun we had on our first narrow boat holiday back in 2011.  We did negotiate a few locks and even did a tidal crossing but we didn't encounter anything like this.

We both really like locks.  Simon is fascinated by the engineering skills that went into making them.  I am just in awe of such huge structures. There are several other staircase locks in the UK and this has whetted our appetite to visit more.  Hopefully in 2015 Tallulah will take us to see some. 

Jilly