Lock gates and cottages, view from south east Digital image of E/6499/cn

Description Lock gates and cottages, view from south east Digital image of E/6499/cn

Date 18/9/2001

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number SC 790839

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of E 6499 CN

Scope and Content Bowling Lock-keepers' Cottages, Forth & Clyde Canal, West Dunbartonshire, from south-east This shows the lock-keepers' cottages, built around 1896, beside the lock (foreground) which leads into the upper basin. These purpose-built flats were designed in the style of a large Arts and Crafts villa. The harled and white-painted building has red sandstone margins around the windows and quoins (corner stones). The string-course on the ground floor is only repeated on the first floor of the projecting bay and there is a pier topped by a ball finial at the base of the flight of steps which lead to the upper flat. Lock-keepers' cottages were located beside many of the locks on the canal and were occupied by the canal worker and his family who opened and closed the lock. These buildings were usually designed in a functional style although some were more decorative or followed a particular architectural style. The Forth & Clyde Canal was built between 1768 and 1790. It could have been completed sooner but funds ran out in 1777 and more money was not found by the government until 1784. John Smeaton (1724-92) was the designer and first chief engineer for the project. He was replaced in 1777 by Robert Mackell (d.1779), and in 1785 Robert Whitworth (1734-99) took over the building of the final section of the canal from Glasgow. When the canal was completed in 1790 it ran from the River Forth at Grangemouth, in the east, to Bowling on the River Clyde in the west of Scotland. The canal was linked to Edinburgh when the Union Canal was opened in 1822. The Forth & Clyde Canal was closed in 1963 and the Union Canal in 1965 and the construction of new roads meant that it was impossible for boats to travel along the full length of these watercourses. However, the £84.5m Millennium Link project enabled the canals to reopen in 2002. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/790839

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