Fonserannes Lock is a staircase lock on the Canal du Midi

Canal du Midi

The is a long canal in Southern France . The canal connects the Garonne River to the on the Mediterranean and along with the Canal de Garonne forms the Canal des Deux Mers joining the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. The canal runs from the city of Toulouse down to the Étang de Thau...

 near Béziers

Béziers

Béziers is a town in Languedoc in southern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the Hérault department. Béziers hosts the famous Feria de Béziers, centred around bullfighting, every August. A million visitors are attracted to the five-day event...

.
It consists of eight ovoid lock chambers (characteristic of the Canal du Midi) and nine gates, which allow boats to be raised a height of 21.5 m, in a distance of 300 m.
Whilst the flight was built as an 8-rise, to allow boats to cross the River Orb on a level, rejoining the canal a little further downstream, the crossing of the Orb was long ago replaced by an aqueduct.

Boats now enter and exit the lower end of the flight through the side of chamber seven, which is maintained at its upper level, and it is operated as a 6-rise.

The eighth chamber, which locks down into the Orb, is now disused.

The side exit from chamber seven causes some confusion in describing the flight. While most sources now ignore the disused eighth chamber in describing the flight, many sources still describe it as a 7-rise, despite the fact that chamber seven is operated at a fixed level.

Traditional buildings such as the stables and the lock keeper's house still remain. These and the locks have made the Fonserannes Lock the third most popular tourist destination in Languedoc-Roussillon

Languedoc-Roussillon

Languedoc-Roussillon is one of the 27 regions of France. It comprises five departments, and borders the other French regions of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Rhône-Alpes, Auvergne, Midi-Pyrénées on the one side, and Spain, Andorra and the Mediterranean sea on the other side.-Geography:The region is...

, after the Pont du Gard

Pont du Gard

The Pont du Gard is a notable ancient Roman aqueduct bridge that crosses the Gard River in southern France. It is part of a long aqueduct that runs between Uzès and Nîmes in the South of France. It is located in Vers-Pont-du-Gard near Remoulins, in the Gard département...

 and the town of Carcassonne

Carcassonne

Carcassonne is a fortified French town in the Aude department, of which it is the prefecture, in the former province of Languedoc.It is divided into the fortified Cité de Carcassonne and the more expansive lower city, the ville basse. Carcassone was founded by the Visigoths in the fifth century,...

.
In 1983 an inclined plane

Canal inclined plane

An inclined plane is a system used on some canals for raising boats between different water levels. Boats may be conveyed afloat, in caissons, or may be carried in cradles or slings. It can be considered as a specialised type of cable railway....

 was built for boats too large for these locks to bypass them, but the project encountered severe technical problems and was abandoned in 2001 (see Fonserannes water slope

Fonserannes water slope

The Fonserannes Water Slope, is a disused inclined plane on the Canal du Midi parallel to the Fonserannes Lock. It has a rise of and a slope of five degrees.This technique for a water slope was described by the French engineer Jean Aubert in 1961....

).

Though Pierre-Paul Riquet

Pierre-Paul Riquet

Pierre-Paul Riquet was the engineer and canal-builder responsible for the construction of the Canal du Midi.-Background:...

 rightly receives so much credit and acknowledgement for the creation of the Canal du Midi

Canal du Midi

The is a long canal in Southern France . The canal connects the Garonne River to the on the Mediterranean and along with the Canal de Garonne forms the Canal des Deux Mers joining the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. The canal runs from the city of Toulouse down to the Étang de Thau...

, we may forget that many individual parts of the canal were built by subcontractors other than Riquet

Pierre-Paul Riquet

Pierre-Paul Riquet was the engineer and canal-builder responsible for the construction of the Canal du Midi.-Background:...

. The subcontractors for these locks were two illiterate brothers, Michel and Pierre Medailhes. Many of the workers were women.

External links

• The French article from which this article was translated
• Fonserannes Locks
• Plan of the Fonserannes Locks