First of all let me say, you'd better not have a hatred of roundabouts if you visit Falkirk! I lost count of the number I had to go round to firstly get to The Helix and secondly to get from there to the Falkirk Wheel. Thank God for a good satnav.
The two canals served by the wheel were previously connected by a series of 11 locks which took a day to navigate. By the 1930s these had fallen into disuse, and the locks were dismantled in 1933. The Forth and Clyde Canal closed at the end of 1962, and by the mid-1970s the Union Canal was filled in at both ends. In 1976 the British Waterways Board decided that the Forth and Clyde Canal, fragmented by various developments, was to have its remaining navigability preserved by building new bridges with sufficient headroom for boats and continuing to maintain the existing locks but restoration of sea-to-sea navigation was deemed too expensive at the time.
Along came the Millennium Project whose aim was to restore the entire navigation of the old canal and replace the locks with the building of The Falkirk Wheel. Boats approaching from the higher Union Canal now use a new length of waterway before descending through two locks. They then progress through a new 550ft long tunnel that emerges at the start of a 340ft concrete aqueduct. The far end of this opens directly into the upper of the two "gondolas" of the Falkirk Wheel.
The wheel then rotates, and having descended what is now the lower gondola opens out into a circular basin. One final lock at the far end of the basin lowers boats to the level of the Forth and Clyde Canal. All clever stuff which has to be seen to be fully appreciated.
They do barge trips from the Visitor Centre which takes you up and back down The Wheel but I arrived late in the afternoon and the final trip had left. I did stand below the structure as it lowered a barge from the higher level and got a real appreciation of its size and the engineering involved to make it work.
I made a quick visit to The Visitor Centre and then started the long journey back to Cumbria. A tiring day but well worth it.
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| The Falkirk Wheel |
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| The Falkirk Wheel |
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| The Falkirk Wheel |
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| The Falkirk Wheel |
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| The Falkirk Wheel |
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| The Falkirk Wheel |
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| The Falkirk Wheel |
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| The Falkirk Wheel |
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| The Falkirk Wheel |
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| Visitor Centre |
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