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 the 75 ft hill and uses 25 thousand gallons of water. Boat size is restricted to seven feet in the locks. Boats using the locks can carry a maximum load of 25 tons.
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.
With the coming of the railways competition was starting to bite. Fellows Morton And Clayton (FMC) wanted to use bigger boats to take coal from the north to the London factories. They promoted a take-over of the Leicester line of the canal by the Grand Junction Canal Company. (see Local Waterways). The takeover was successful and FMC promised to put more narowboats on the canal until the locks at Watford (Gap) and Foxton could be widened.
GJCCo engineer Gordon Cale Thomas was put in charge of the project, Wide locks were dismissed as using too much water from the canals summit pound. His solution was to build a boat lift to his patented design.
The lift was 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 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.
Click on the photograph to listen to an actor playing Gordon Thomas describe the working of the lift.
The Lift consisted of two tanks or Caissons linked by wire rope. a steam driven winch at the top, wound the rope on one side of its drum and simultaneously let it off the other, raising or lowering the tank. Each tank was full of water and weighed 230 tons with or without a boat. Two boats or a barge would fit in to each tank. The incline was 1 in 4 and the total lift 75'2".
Using the LiftIn operation, you took your boat (s) in to the tank at your level. The operator would close a guillotine gate behind you and signal the engine room with a ships telegraph.
The 25 horse power steam engine is turned on and you ascend the hill. The other tank descends either loaded with boats or just full of water. the descending tank simply sinks into the water at the bottom where the Guillotine gate is opened by the operator. However, as the descending tank sinks it also starts to float, relieving it of its weight, this removed the counterbalance from the ascending tank.
When the tank nears the top of the Incline an ingenious change is made to the angle of assent. The top of the slope curves off, making it easier for the tank to ascend, on the leading edge of the tanks extra wheels come into contact with extra rail either side of the normal track, at the same time the rear wheels descend into a pit. this arrangement keeps the tanks level.
The tank has scraped the wooden seals fixed on the end of the top dock.
Once at the top, hydraulic rams push the tank hard on to the wooden seal and the guillotine gates on the end of the tank and on the dock are opened, the horse is reattached and off you go.
The entire operation has taken 12 minutes, and may have moved 2 boats up and 2 down. A big saving against the time taken to use the locks. The lift also saved a tremendous amount of water, because the only wastage was that trapped between the gates at the top.
Night Use
The lift didn't normally work in the dark, horse boats tended to stop because the horse needed its rest. By 1909 FMC steam boats were working 'Fly' which meant non stop boating 24 hours a day, with a four man crew. To accommodate these fly boats, the locks were rebuilt for night use.
The Normal narrow boat - seven foot wide and seventy two feet long was to be replaced by a wide boat .
Wide boats were ten feet wide and seventy two feet long. Both boats needed a horse and crew.
Narowboats carry around 25 tons, wide boats can carry up to 50 tons.
Barges are usually about 14 foot wide, two of them would have difficulty passing on the summit pound of the canal.
The lift had worked well but, the locks at Watford Gap were never widened, and the traffic didn't increase. This made the lift uneconomic. there were problems with track bolts pulling out of the sleepers, but nothing that could not have been overcome. The lift was capable of moving a massive amount of traffic compared with the actual usage. FMC's promise of increased traffic hadn't been fulfilled.
Closure
In 1911 the Lift was mothballed to save money, the traffic returning to the locks which have been in use ever since. The decision was probably due to the need for substantial maintenance repairs on the 10 year old structure, and the cost of keeping the lift in steam with a minimum of three operators. The fact that a fully working set of locks sat alongside the lift would not have helped. The lift was maintained for a few years, but sank into a slow decline. In 1928 the machinery was sold for scrap.
Restoration
In 2008 the Foxton Locks Partnership completed a £3m lottery funded project which has resulted in the lift site being removed from the 'Monuments at risk' register.
The Foxton Inclined Plane Trust, working with the Foxton Locks Partnership, intend to restore the lift to full working order. We are now raising money to pay for various studies and plans which will lead to a Lottery bid for between £10 and15m, not much when compared to the price of a footballer or the Olympics!
There is a great deal of interest in this project if you wish to help please join the FIPT.
