Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The locks are built as staircases wherever possible and include two of the three longest
staircases in Britain. They have horizontal capstan wheels with four ports to take posts for
use as windlasses. Drum windlasses are also present by some locks, used until mechanisation
in the 1960s. Sea Lock has the first of the lighthouses, small white cylindrical structures with
black conical roofs. Indeed, the buildings on the canal are generally black and white, standing
out smartly in the rugged scenery.
The staircase of two locks beyond the tidal basin takes the canal up to moorings and its
first reach, one of the most dramatic in Britain. Directly ahead is Ben Nevis, the highest peak
in the British Isles at 1,344m, 9km away with its summit just 7km from the sea although that
summit is frequently shrouded in cloud. Fort William has one of the highest levels of rainfall
in Britain, with an average of 239 days of precipitation spread right through the year. An an-
nual race from the town to the summit and back has a record time under an hour and a half.
The first two of the canal's 11 swing bridges are met at Caol. A manually swung railway
bridge carries the West Highland line from Fort William to Mallaig with steam trains and ob-
servation cars in operation in the summer; the railway line and bridge are now also associated
with Harry Potter's Hogwarts Express. It is followed immediately by the A830, the current
Road to the Isles.
Banavie Locks are the longest and widest staircase in Britain with eight locks taking the
canal up 20m; walls collapsed here in 1829 and 1839. A rebuild was also required in 1929
when a vessel crashed through the top lock gates and fell into the lock below, the sudden wa-
ter loading damaging the chamber walls. Indeed, the walls were built as the longest pieces of
masonry on any canal, each 460m. The flight passes the Moorings Hotel, a craft shop and a
quarry. From the top of Neptune's Staircase, as the flight is also known, the view back down
Loch Linnhe is stupendous. Among those able to appreciate it are lock keepers whose houses
have views down the flight, and those waiting to descend, as boats cannot pass on the flight.
For the next 10km the Western Reach is mostly sheltered by trees, to the extent that the
B8004 on one side and the River Lochy on the other are not seen at all. The Upper Banavie
aqueduct collapsed in 1843 and Shangan and Loy aqueducts were rebuilt in consequence.
Three sluices at Strone act as overflow weirs 1.2m wide and 3m high, the water falling 2.7m
to the River Lochy. The turbulence of this resulted in Telford's becoming quite lyrical. Just
before the canal passes over the River Loy, there are forest walks in a fragment of the old
Caledonian pine forest. The crossings of rivers are usually only marked by groups of stone
arches on the left bank or sluices on the right although aqueducts usually have side arches for
farm access, not obvious from above. This one has three parallel 76m tunnels, the centre one
7.6m wide and the outer ones 3m wide, all of the order of 4m high. One is for access.
