Mystery photo challenge

Hint: This is a canalised river, leading from the sea to a small town. Part of the town is in the distance. The abutments in the middle distance were for a swing bridge, referred to on maps as a drawbridge.  The river was always navigable, but this 1,400 yard section was canalised in 1824 to improve access to the town. Can you name the canal and the town?

Answer: The river is known as the Water of Fleet, and the town is Gatehouse of Fleet in Kirkcudbrightshire, now part of Dumfries & Galloway.  The canalised section is known locally as the Fleet Canal, and labelled on Ordnance Survey maps, as just ‘The Canal’.  The photo [by John Foley] was taken from the A75 (Gretna to Stranraer) bridge.  The town’s harbour, Port McAdam received up to 150 cargo-laden ships per annum in its heyday.

Location correctly guessed by: Jo Moody, Jen Morris and Alison Smedley.

Hint: This busy scenes shows working boats from a past era, but do you know where it is?  Bonus points if you know what the main commodity was and where it was going.

Answer: The photo is an aerial shot of Heybridge Basin on the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation, thought to be taken in the mid-1960s.  By this time, the only cargo carried on the Navigation was timber, which arrived by sea from Scandinavia, was trans-shipped into Chelmer Lighters in the Basin, as can be seen happening in this photo, and then taken up to Brown & Son timber merchants, who were based at Springfield Basin at the Head of the Navigation in Chelmsford.  The trade lasted until 1972.  The photo also shows eel barges in the Basin, storing eels for the London market.  There is a good aerial shot of Springfield Basin taken in 1934 at Historic England’s website.  Brown & Son were successors to a business originally founded by Richard Coates, the resident engineer for the construction of the Navigation, which opened in 1797.  Brown & Son were absorbed into what is now Travis Perkins, who still have premises at Springfield Basin.

Correctly guessed by: Roy Chandler, Ian Cleathero, Chris Davey, George Eycott, Rodney Hardwick, Andrew Lawton, Julius Mach, Andy McLaughlin, Mike Robards and Paul Strudwick.  There was an almost record level of entries this month, with many thinking the photo was at Sharpness on the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal.

Hint: This photo, taken in autumn 2022, shows one of the lowest (if not the lowest), in more ways than one, bridge on the connected navigable inland waterways network (unless, of course, you know differently), but which waterway does it cross?  There are bonus points if you know both names for the bridge and the height of its headroom.

Thanks to Mike Daines for the photo.

Answer: The bridge crosses the Old River Nene, part of the Middle Level Navigations.  The bridge is Exhibition Bridge, also known as Stoke’s Bridge.  The officially declared headroom is just five foot, although this can vary with water levels.  It is also a very low bridge in the sense that this part of the Old River Nene is the lowest level on the Middle Level Navigations and the bridge is about one metre below Sea Level.  There is a useful map of bridges on the Middle Level Navigation and their headroom at the Middle Level Commissioners website.  For bridge fans, there is a whole film about just this bridge on YouTube.

Correctly guessed (*with bonus points) by: Ian Cleathero*, John Foley and Rupert Smedley.

Hint: This photo shows a derelict looking lock, photographed on 20th September 1972.  The lock, is now restored and the scene now looks rather different, but this is Lock 14 on which canal?  The brick toll house in the centre of the photo might be a clue.

Answer: This photograph was of Lock 14 on the Cromford Canal at Langley Mill, near the junction of the Cromford, Erewash and Nottingham canals.  Replacement gates from the Nottingham Canal are beside the lock being readied for installation as part of restoration by Erewash Canal Preservation & Development Association, which subsequently restored and continues to look after the Nottingham Canal brick toll office (the small red brick building to the right) and swing bridge (far right) at the junction of the Cromford and Nottingham Canals.  There is more info here.  Friends of the Cromford Canal are working to restore the Cromford Canal further north.

Correctly guessed by: Malcolm Bridge, Tony Clayton, Chris Davey, Brian Ferris, Michael Golds, Jonathan Lisle, John Lower, Andrew Shipman, Doug Swain, Dave Turner and Izzie Turner.