Tardebigge Locks
Encyclopedia
Tardebigge Locks or the Tardebigge Flight is the longest flight of locks in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, comprising 30 narrow locks on a two and a quarter mile stretch of the Worcester and Birmingham Canal
Worcester and Birmingham Canal
The Worcester and Birmingham Canal is a canal linking Birmingham and Worcester in England. It starts in Worcester, as an 'offshoot' of the River Severn and ends in Gas Street Basin in Birmingham. It is long....
at Tardebigge
Tardebigge
Tardebigge is a village in Worcestershire, England.The village is most famous for the Tardebigge Locks, a flight of 36 canal locks that raise the Worcester and Birmingham Canal over 220 feet over the Lickey Ridge. It lies in the historic county of Worcestershire.-Toponymy:The etymology of the...
, Worcestershire
Worcestershire
Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...
. It raises the waterway some 220 feet, and lies in between the Tardebigge tunnel (length 580 yards) to the North and the Stoke Prior
Stoke Prior, Worcestershire
Stoke Prior is a village in the civil parish of Stoke in Bromsgrove District of Worcestershire. The parish includes the settlement of Stoke Wharf and hamlet of Woodgate, along with neighbouring Stoke Heath...
flight of 6 narrow locks to the South. The Tardebigge Engine House is also on this stretch.
History
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
to the wharf (now known as the Old Wharf) north of Brockhill Lane bridge by 30 March 1807 without the need for locks. After the Old Wharf, the Tardebigge tunnel runs through the solid rock to the New Wharf, just above Lock 58, the topmost lock in the flight. The canal company was concerned with the expense of the 58 locks needed to take the canal down to the River Severn
River Severn
The River Severn is the longest river in Great Britain, at about , but the second longest on the British Isles, behind the River Shannon. It rises at an altitude of on Plynlimon, Ceredigion near Llanidloes, Powys, in the Cambrian Mountains of mid Wales...
at Worcester
Worcester
The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...
. The Tardebigge vertical lift was invented by John Woodhouse and installed at his own expense, with excavation and masonry provided by the company. Finished on 24 June 1808, it was housed in a covered shed and used a fixed counterweight of bricks, connected by a set of eight parallel chains and pulleys. Lifting was performed by two men using a windlass. The 64 ton wooden caisson
Caisson lock
A caisson lock is a type of canal lock in which a narrowboat is enclosed in a sealed box and raised or lowered between two water levels. It was intended primarily as a water-saving measure, but also to save construction costs when compared with other engineering solutions. It was capable of...
(lifting chamber) was sealed at each end by guillotine gates, as was the lock chamber. It succeeded in lifting 110 boats in 12 hours but was considered too fragile for permanent use. The remainder of the canal was built with locks, and the lift was replaced by one in 1815. The lift mechanism has gone but the outline of its balancing pit may be seen near the lock keeper's cottage.
Close to lock number 57, the second from the top, is the Tardebigge Engine House
Tardebigge Engine House
Tardebigge Engine House is a former canal-pumping engine house at Tardebigge, Worcestershire, England. It is grade II listed.It stands near lock 57 of the Tardebigge Locks on the Worcester and Birmingham Canal and contained a steam powered Newcomen-Watt beam engine, which was removed in 1915...
, built to pump water up from Tardebigge Reservoir, which is about 50 ft (15.2m) below the level of the top pound. The original steam engine has been removed, and the building has since been reused as a restaurant, but is currently vacant. The reservoir was one of a number of water supplies for the canal.
There is a detailed history by Revd Alan White in his book The Worcester and Birmingham Canal.
IWA
At the top lock are plaques commemorating the 1945 founding of the Inland Waterways AssociationInland Waterways Association
The Inland Waterways Association was formed in 1946 as a registered charity in the United Kingdom to campaign for the conservation, use, maintenance, restoration and sensitive development of British Canals and river navigations....
(IWA).
See also
- Bingley Five Rise LocksBingley Five Rise LocksBingley Five Rise Locks is a staircase lock on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Bingley . As the name implies, a boat going up the lock is lifted in five stages.-Description:...
in West Yorkshire - Bingley Three Rise LocksBingley Three Rise LocksBingley Three Rise Locks is a staircase of three locks on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Bingley, West Yorkshire, England. It opened in 1774 and was a major feat of engineering at the time along with the larger Five Rise opened at the same time and several hundred metres further up...
in West Yorkshire - Foxton LocksFoxton LocksFoxton Locks are ten canal locks consisting of two "staircases" each of five locks, located on the Leicester line of the Grand Union Canal about 5 km west of the Leicestershire town of Market Harborough and are named after the nearby village of Foxton....
near Market Harborough, Leicestershire - Watford LocksWatford LocksWatford Locks is a group of seven locks on the Leicester Line of the Grand Union Canal, in Northamptonshire, England, famous for the Watford Gap service area....
in Northamptonshire - Caen Hill LocksCaen Hill LocksCaen Hill Locks are a flight of locks on the Kennet and Avon Canal, between Rowde and Devizes in Wiltshire England.The 29 locks have a rise of 237 feet in 2 miles or a 1 in 44 gradient. The locks come in three groups. The lower seven locks, Foxhangers Wharf Lock to Foxhangers Bridge Lock, are...
near Devizes, Wiltshire - Fourteen LocksFourteen LocksFourteen Locks is a series of locks, also known as the Cefn Flight, on the Crumlin arm of the Monmouthshire Canal at Rogerstone in Newport, South Wales. The flight of locks was completed in 1799 and raises the water level 160 ft in just 800 yd...
near Newport, South Wales