"Neptune's Staircase Neptune's Staircase () is a staircase lock comprising eight locks on the Caledonian Canal. Built by Thomas Telford between 1803 and 1822, it is the longest staircase lock in Britain. The system was originally hand-powered but has been converted to hydraulic operation. Neptune’s Staircase at Banavie, near Fort William just north of Loch Linnhe, is kept by Scottish Canals. It is the longest staircase lock in Britain, lifting boats . It consists of eight locks, each by , and it takes boats about 90 minutes to pass through the system. The current lock gates weigh 22 tons each,"
"other. The Huddersfield Narrow Canal was the third of the trans-Pennine routes to open. It was authorised at the same time as the Rochdale Canal, but had a long tunnel on the summit level, and was not fully opened until 1811, seven years after the Rochdale. Standedge tunnel is the longest canal tunnel in Britain, and also the highest, as the summit level is above sea level. This is higher than the summit of the Rochdale, and yet it is also the deepest canal tunnel, as it is below Saddleworth Moor in places. The canal is long, with 42 locks,"
"Tardebigge Locks Tardebigge Locks or the Tardebigge Flight is the longest flight of locks in the UK, comprising 30 narrow locks on a stretch of the Worcester and Birmingham Canal at Tardebigge, Worcestershire. It raises the waterway , and lies between the Tardebigge tunnel ( long) to the North and the Stoke Prior flight of six narrow locks to the South. The Tardebigge Engine House is also on this stretch. The top lock has a rise of eleven feet, unusually high for a single lock. This lock was built to replace an experimental vertical boat lift. The canal had been"
"in December 2015. Hand crafted English Oak gates weighing were swung into place on the locks in a £3.5 million modernisation programme. Bingley Three Rise Locks Bingley Three Rise Locks is a staircase of three locks on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Bingley, West Yorkshire, England. It opened in 1774 and was a major feat of engineering at the time along with the larger Five Rise opened at the same time and several hundred metres further up. The lock comprises a ""staircase flight""—the lower gate of one lock forming the upper gate of the next lock. In 1985 the"
"Watford Locks Watford Locks () is a group of seven locks on the Leicester Line of the Grand Union Canal, in Northamptonshire, England, famous for the Watford Gap service area. The locks are formed (looking from the south), of two single locks, a staircase of four, and a final single lock. Together they lift the canal 16 m (52 ft 6 in) to the ""Leicester Summit"", which it maintains all the way to Foxton Locks. The locks were built to carry narrowboats, and the system was opened in 1814. In the early 20th century there were plans to build an"
"Snakeholme Lock Snakeholme Lock is a brick chamber canal lock on the Driffield Navigation, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is notable in being a staircase lock, but only the upper lock is still used. It was designated Grade II in 1986. It is 0.5 mile (0.8 km) south-east from the village of Wansford, and is approximately 17 miles (27 km) north of Kingston upon Hull city centre. Built during the construction of the Driffield Navigation after the Act of Parliament in 1767. It was the first lock reached on the new section of canal, and became the"
"Channel Tunnel The Channel Tunnel (; also nicknamed the Chunnel) is a rail tunnel linking Folkestone, Kent, in the United Kingdom, with Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais, near Calais in northern France, beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. It is the only fixed link between the island of Great Britain and the European mainland. At its lowest point, it is deep below the sea bed and below sea level. At , the tunnel has the longest undersea portion of any tunnel in the world, although the Seikan Tunnel in Japan is both longer overall at and deeper at below sea"
"Bingley Three Rise Locks Bingley Three Rise Locks is a staircase of three locks on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Bingley, West Yorkshire, England. It opened in 1774 and was a major feat of engineering at the time along with the larger Five Rise opened at the same time and several hundred metres further up. The lock comprises a ""staircase flight""—the lower gate of one lock forming the upper gate of the next lock. In 1985 the locks were designated Grade II* listed status. In 2007 the lock gates were refurbished with full replacement of the gates taking place"
"Fort William to Helensburgh including the branch line to Oban. The Caledonian Canal passes through Banavie, before ascending Neptune's Staircase, the longest staircase lock in the United Kingdom. The canal is crossed by two swing bridges, one carrying the railway and the other the A835 road. Banavie Pier railway station served the canal paddle steamers until 1939. The station building, platform and station master's house still survive as private dwellings. The village has a number of bed and breakfast, guesthouses, self-catering and hotels. The scenery around Banavie is exceptional with Ben Nevis dominant in the skyline. The Caledonian Canal passes"
"Bingley Five Rise Locks Bingley Five-Rise Locks is a staircase lock on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Bingley (). As the name implies, a boat passing through the lock is lifted or lowered in five stages. In effect the five-rise consists of five locks connected together without intermediate ""ponds"": the lower gate of each chamber forms the upper gate of the chamber below. There are therefore five chambers, and six gates. As the Leeds Liverpool canal is a wide canal, the chambers are slightly more than wide, and each gate consists of two half-gates, ""hinged"" from opposite sides of"
"Blisworth Tunnel Blisworth Tunnel is a canal tunnel on the Grand Union Canal in Northamptonshire, England, between the villages of Stoke Bruerne at the southern end and Blisworth at the northern end. The northern end is about from the northern end of the Grand Junction Canal at Braunston, Northamptonshire and the southern end about . At 3,076 yards (2,813m) long it is the third-longest navigable canal tunnel on the UK canal network after Standedge Tunnel and Dudley Tunnel (and the ninth-longest canal tunnel in the world). At its deepest point it is ""ca.""143 feet (""ca.""43m) below ground level. The tunnel"
"basin is the oldest surviving warehouse in the country, dating from before 1778. Commercial traffic ceased in 1953, but the canal remained open, and has seen increased traffic since the re-opening of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. Construction of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal began in 1794, and parts of it were open by 1797, but it was not until 1811 that it was fully open, as a result of delays in building the longest canal tunnel in Britain at Standedge. Although only long, it includes 74 locks, 42 to the east of the tunnel and 32 to the west. The ascent"
"his book ""The Worcester and Birmingham Canal"". In 1992 lock 58 and several of the surrounding structures including the side pond and sluice, lock cottage and bridge were designated as listed buildings. At the top lock are plaques commemorating the 1945 founding of the Inland Waterways Association (IWA). Tardebigge Locks Tardebigge Locks or the Tardebigge Flight is the longest flight of locks in the UK, comprising 30 narrow locks on a stretch of the Worcester and Birmingham Canal at Tardebigge, Worcestershire. It raises the waterway , and lies between the Tardebigge tunnel ( long) to the North and the Stoke"
"Foxton Locks Foxton Locks () are ten canal locks consisting of two ""staircases"" each of five locks, located on the Leicester line of the Grand Union Canal about 5 km west of the Leicestershire town of Market Harborough and are named after the nearby village of Foxton. They form the northern terminus of a 20-mile summit level that passes Husbands Bosworth, Crick and ends with the Watford flight Staircase locks are used where a canal needs to climb a steep hill, and consist of a group of locks where each lock opens directly into the next, that is, where the"
"here is that used on the British canals. A subsequent section explains common variations. The ""rise"" is the change in water-level in the lock. The two deepest locks on the English canal system are Bath deep lock on the Kennet and Avon Canal and Tuel Lane Lock on the Rochdale Canal, which both have a rise of nearly . Both locks are amalgamations of two separate locks, which were combined when the canals were restored to accommodate changes in road crossings. The deepest ""as-built"" locks in England are considered to be Etruria Top Lock on the Trent and Mersey Canal"
"locks. In this case, a road widening scheme necessitated one lock which has a fall of . Tuel Lane Lock Tuel Lane Lock is a canal lock, situated on the Rochdale Canal in Sowerby Bridge. It was built in 1996 as part of the canal's restoration, and replaces two previous locks, locks 3 and 4, from the original canal system. With a fall of , it is the deepest lock in the United Kingdom. The Rochdale Canal opened in 1804, the first of three trans-Pennine canals to be completed, and it proved to be very successful, until the First World"
"is King's Cross St Pancras. There are also National Rail stations at King's Cross and St Pancras. St Pancras Lock St Pancras Lock is a lock on the Regent's Canal, in the London Borough of Camden, England. The St Pancras Basin is nearby. Regent's Canal was authorised by an Act of Parliament obtained on 13 July 1812, for a canal from Paddington to Limehouse. The directors had decided that all locks would be paired when they first met, but were then sidetracked by proposals to use hydro-pneumatic boat lifts. Operation of a trial lift built at Camden Town was problematic,"
"Tuel Lane Lock Tuel Lane Lock is a canal lock, situated on the Rochdale Canal in Sowerby Bridge. It was built in 1996 as part of the canal's restoration, and replaces two previous locks, locks 3 and 4, from the original canal system. With a fall of , it is the deepest lock in the United Kingdom. The Rochdale Canal opened in 1804, the first of three trans-Pennine canals to be completed, and it proved to be very successful, until the First World War, when a steady decline in traffic began. All traffic had ceased by 1937, and most of"
"finally opened; it is the longest and oldest of the four and is the longest and highest canal tunnel in the United Kingdom. Having been closed to all traffic in 1943, the canal tunnel was later re-opened during May 2001. The first, single-track railway tunnel, built for the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) on their line between Huddersfield and Manchester, was completed during 1848. However, it quickly proved to have insufficient capacity and a second, parallel, single-track tunnel was opened during 1871. Finally, the LNWR opened a third, double-track tunnel nearby on 1894. All four of the tunnels are"
"St Pancras Lock St Pancras Lock is a lock on the Regent's Canal, in the London Borough of Camden, England. The St Pancras Basin is nearby. Regent's Canal was authorised by an Act of Parliament obtained on 13 July 1812, for a canal from Paddington to Limehouse. The directors had decided that all locks would be paired when they first met, but were then sidetracked by proposals to use hydro-pneumatic boat lifts. Operation of a trial lift built at Camden Town was problematic, and after a suggestion by Earl Stanhope in 1815 that they revert to single locks, the proprietors"
"one of two rivet benchmarks on this branch, the other being at Smethwick Middle Lock. Spon Lane Locks Branch The Spon Lane Locks Branch is an 800-yard section of the BCN Main Line canal in Oldbury, England, which forms a connecting canal ""sliproad"" where the Old BCN Main Line crosses the New BCN Main Line at the Stewart Aqueduct. It runs westwards from Spon Lane Junction (underneath the M5 motorway) via the three Spon Lane Locks to Bromford Junction. It was originally part of the Wednesbury branch of Birmingham Canal which opened in 1769. At the top lock, there is"
"Huddersfield Narrow Canal Pylon The Huddersfield Narrow Canal Pylon, (National Grid tower designation ""4ZO251B""), is an electricity pylon which stands with its feet over the Huddersfield Narrow Canal near Heyrod, Stalybridge, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom. The Stalybridge substation was built while the canal was closed to navigation, encroaching on the former canal line, and the canal was culverted at this point from the head of Lock 8W to a point immediately downstream of the substation. The extent of the former culvert can still be seen, as it was reused to form the lock bywash. When the canal reopened, the channel"
"Worcester and Birmingham Canal The Worcester and Birmingham Canal is a canal linking Birmingham and Worcester in England. It starts in Worcester, as an 'offshoot' of the River Severn (just after the river lock) and ends in Gas Street Basin in Birmingham. It is long. There are 58 locks in total on the canal, including the 30 Tardebigge Locks, one of the largest lock flights in Europe. The canal climbs from Worcester to Birmingham. The parliamentary bill permitting its construction was passed in 1791 empowering the company to raise £180,000 (equivalent to £ in ), through 1,800 shares at a"
"is not synonymous with ""Staircase"" (see below). A set of locks is only a staircase if successive lock chambers share a gate (i.e. do not have separate top and bottom gates with a pound between them). Most flights are not staircases, because each chamber is a separate lock (with its own upper and lower gates), there is a navigable pound (however short) between each pair of locks, and the locks are operated in the conventional way. However, some flights include (or consist entirely of) staircases. On the Grand Union (Leicester) Canal, the Watford flight consists of a four-chamber staircase and"
"Carpenter's Road Lock Carpenter's Road Lock is a rising radial lock in the London Borough of Newham, near Marshgate Lane in Stratford, England. It is located on the Bow Back Rivers and was constructed in 1933/34. It is the only lock in Britain with rising radial gates at both ends. British Waterways were hoping to restore it as part of the upgrade to Bow Back Rivers which took place for the London 2012 Games, but the gantries which enabled the gates to be raised were demolished to accommodate a wide bridge giving access to the main stadium. After the games,"
"February 2017, by Jesse Norman, Minister for Industry and Energy. Channel Tunnel The Channel Tunnel (; also nicknamed the Chunnel) is a rail tunnel linking Folkestone, Kent, in the United Kingdom, with Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais, near Calais in northern France, beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. It is the only fixed link between the island of Great Britain and the European mainland. At its lowest point, it is deep below the sea bed and below sea level. At , the tunnel has the longest undersea portion of any tunnel in the world, although the Seikan Tunnel in Japan"
"Wardle Canal The Wardle canal is the shortest canal in the UK at . The canal lies in Middlewich, Cheshire, UK, and connects the Trent and Mersey Canal to the Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union Canal, terminating with a single lock known as Wardle Lock. It was built in 1829 so that the navigation authority of the Trent and Mersey Canal could maintain control over the junction. Maureen Shaw, a boat woman who was well known to passing boaters as well as the local and canal community, lived in the Lock Cottage at Wardle lock for many years, with"
"for historical interest. On 18 April 2003, the lock was reopened to traffic by the Mayor of Driffield. Several boats made the trip to ""The Trout"" pub in Wansford, but large amounts of silt and a trout farm located just above the lock have limited the numbers of boats using this stretch. The paddles on the top gate are currently locked up to stop misuse. Snakeholme Lock Snakeholme Lock is a brick chamber canal lock on the Driffield Navigation, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is notable in being a staircase lock, but only the upper lock is"
"Bascote Locks Bascote locks form a flight of four locks on the Grand Union Canal, which is part of the British canal system and connects London and Birmingham. The lock flight has a staircase, and at the highest lock the remains of older narrow locks can be seen. The locks are on a section of canal which was originally part of the Warwick and Napton Canal. When authorised by an Act of Parliament in 1794, it was intended to be a canal from a junction with the Warwick and Birmingham Canal at Warwick to the Grand Junction Canal at Braunston,"
"level of the canal by . Below the bottom lock, the canal is level for to Welsh Road Lock, and above the top lock, it is level for to Itchington Bottom Lock. The paddles on the locks reflect the style of the Warwick and Napton Canal, and are different from those further south, where the canal was built by the Grand Junction company. Bascote Locks Bascote locks form a flight of four locks on the Grand Union Canal, which is part of the British canal system and connects London and Birmingham. The lock flight has a staircase, and at the"
"Netherton Tunnel Branch Canal Netherton Tunnel Branch Canal, in the English West Midlands, is part of the Birmingham Canal Navigations, (BCN). It was constructed at a 453–foot elevation, the Wednesbury or Birmingham level; it has no locks. The total length of the branch canal is and the canal tunnel is long. Netherton Tunnel was the last canal tunnel to be built in Britain during the Canal Age. The first sod was turned by the Lord Ward on 31 December 1855 and the canal opened on 20 August 1858, providing a waterway connection between the Black Country towns of Netherton and"
"staircase pair. Although the Duke of Kent performed an opening ceremony on 30 October 1934 at the top lock of the Hatton flight, to mark the completion of the project, work continued until 1937. One boat was built, but without widening the bottom of the canal, there were many places where two such boats could not pass, and the new locks were used by pairs of narrow boats. In common with many of the locks on this section of the canal, the remains of the original locks can still be seen beside the newer ones. The four locks raise the"
"staircase at Lockport, New York was also a doubled set of locks. Five twinned locks allowed east- and west-bound boats to climb or descend the Niagara Escarpment, a considerable engineering feat in the nineteenth century. While Lockport today has two large steel locks, half of the old twin stair acts as an emergency spillway and can still be seen, with the original lock gates having been restored in early 2016. These terms can also (in different places or to different people) mean either a two-chamber staircase (e.g. Turner Wood Double Locks on the Chesterfield Canal: the same canal has a"