The Guillotine

Wednesday, 07 October 2009 19:15

They like them around here!

No, it's alright, I don't mean the French style guillotines, I mean guillotine locks. Presumably guillotine locks were used when bridges prevented the more traditional mitre gates being used when the Rochdale Canal was re-opened.

As I implied on Monday, I have viewed the promised land:

To the right of the guillotine lock as you look there is a towpath tunnnel, which has been rather wet under foot, to say the least, due mainly to the lock being full every time I have gone past. The water pours over the guillotine gate (no water shortage here then) and presumably there is a leak through the retaining wall.

Anyway, that will be our next lock. We have booked with BW to go "over the summit" on Monday, together with Gypsy Rover. Hopefully Fi will be on board, but there is no guarantee that she will be discharged by then. That may mean we will have to take the two boats over with just three crew, but there is a possibility that we may have extra volunteer crew - Hint! Hint! Don't worry - we won't leave her behind. There is a railway station at Littleborough, so I could visit from there, and then Manchester becomes a possibility. Either would be places my crew could rejoin. The main thing is that we don't really want to be stranded by the winter stoppages, which begin on November 2nd.

Talking of Derek & Dot, did I say I had spotted them from the bus at Salterhebble Lock on their way here? I didn't have the camera on that occasion, but I did one day previously. You can just see one side of the guillotine and part of the top mitre gates.

Apparently Dot has a picture of a bus from that lock - I wonder if it was the one I was on! Let's see if she posts it :-)

And our number one blogger posted a picture from inside the lock here.