Foxton Inclined Plane Trust
Left:- the sketch shows the water flow through the locks and side ponds. The water is controlled by paddles painted red or white. In effect they are big taps, turning the water on or off. Red paddles fill locks, white empties them. A past lock keeper chose to paint the paddles red and white to make it easier to explain the operation of the locks. He summed it up with "Red afore white and you'll be alright, white afore red and you'll wish you were dead!"
Get the sequence wrong and you risk flooding the pub.
Watching the boats negotiate the locks is a spectator sport, and is often very entertaining
When Benjamin Bevan was given the job of designing locks at Foxton he faced two major problems. The first was water, which was in short supply on the 20 mile summit pound of the canal. The second was the steep escarpment which he needed to use to get the canal from one level to the next. He combined solutions to both problems.
The canal was known as the Grand Union (old GUC) and formed a link between the Leicestershire Northants Union and the Grand Junction canals (GJCco), taking traffic between Nottingham, London and all places in between. 10 locks were constructed at Foxton and seven at Watford. (Watford refers to Watford Gap in Northamptonshire and should not be confused with Watford in Hertfordshire, which has wide locks.) Because the Grand Junction Canal company banned wide boats and barges from its tunnels the Act of Parliament for the old GUC gave permission for the construction of narrow locks, but in the event of the GJCco removing its ban and promoting its use by barges then the Old GUC must widen its locks to accommodate the barges.
The lock flight at Foxton was built in 1810, and the top summit route opened four years later. A trip through the ten locks takes about 45 minutes to climb/descend the 75 ft hill. The ten locks consist of two "staircases" of five, located on the Leicester line of the Grand Union Canal, about 5 km west of the Leicestershire town of Market Harborough. They are named after the nearby village of Foxton. Staircase locks are used where a canal needs to climb a steep hill, and consist of groups of locks which open directly into each other. Foxton Locks are the largest flight of such staircase locks on the English canal system. Side ponds provide reserves of water for the locks, prevent wastage and speed up traffic.
With only the horse for competition the 45 minute journey (for each boat) through the locks was unimportant, even when queues extended this to several hours.
By the end of the 1900s the canal was in poor condition and with the with the coming of the railways competition was starting to bite. Fellows Morton & Clayton (FMC) wanted to use bigger boats to take coal from the north to the London factories. They promoted a takeover by the Grand Junction Canal Company. Steam tugs had been installed in the GJCco tunnels and wide boats and barges were to be used. The locks on the Old GUC were to be widened.
The result was the “Thomas Lift", which opened in 1900 to compete against the railways for traffic. The lift to widen the canal was designed by Gordon Cale Thomas and built by W H Gwynne of Hammersmith London. It had 2 tanks or caissons, each capable of holding 2 narrow boats or a barge. The tanks were full of water, and balanced each other. The lift was powered by a 25 horsepower steam
Foxton is on the junction between the Leicestershire and Northamptonshire Union Canal (LNU) and the (old) Grand Union.
They are now known as the Grand Union Leicester Section.
engine. A journey time of 12 minutes for 2 boats up and 2 down improved the speed tremendously, and the same “lump” of water went up and down the hill all day so a very big saving of water was achieved giving better control of this precious resource.
The lift worked well but the locks at Watford Gap were never widened and the traffic didn't increase. This made the lift uneconomic. The locks were refurbished for night traffic in 1909. FMC wanted to use their steam boats for “fly runs” - non stop boating, the crew taking turns to sleep. They could then compete with the timetables of the railways.
In 1911 the lift was mothballed to save money, the traffic returning to the locks which have been in use ever since. In 1928 the machinery was sold for scrap.
The canal is now the Leicester Section of the Grand Union Canal, part of 4000 miles of the national waterways network. The lift was the most modern and the biggest built. It was a spectacular achievement and has since inspired the design of lifts in Europe where much larger modern examples have been built since the 1960s. The Thomas Lift was never given the credit it deserved
