Yesterday several BW men came to drain the water from the top lock, so at each of the three locks a man with a windlass wound the paddles up. Slowly the hidden mud banks emerged from the water in the top pound, revealing several windlasses too. The stone and brickwork that emerged was in quite good condition, considering its age. The three round brick apertures here allow excess water to escape over the bypass weir beyond the wall. The large buffer stones at the mouth of the lock have protected the sidewalls very well over the years.
Revealed were the splendidly shaped huge blocks of stone of varying sizes set along the edge by the towpath. This made us wonder how they achieved such marvels back in the late 1700s with ropes, basic tools and horse drawn carts.
The engineering of the ironwork around the locks has also stood the test of time. This is what is hidden under the water when we open a ground paddle to fill the lock with water. Well, it took sometime to drain all the water out, a few minutes for BW to fix the top lock gate, then the water level was slowly returned to normal. A good mornings work!
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