Today as E was lockwinding, she noticed again the dates on the locks. Each lock is a combination of the lock itself, the gates, the paddles in the gates and lock ground and various extra bits of masonary/pavement. Each section of each lock has the date of construction on it, and in many cases the date of its renewal. So it is not unusual to see, say 1790 carved into a stone which is a lock edge, then 1850 on a lock gate section, then 2001 on a renewed gate. It is fascinating to see the range of actual times reflecting when the locks were created and renewed. It can be over 100 years between different engineering works, all displayed in a few carved dates we see as we wait for water to fill or leave a lock. And all but for a slightly disused time in the 1930s and 1940s, the locks have been in constant use since their creation. And they are still used for transporting goods, though, nothing like a few hundred years ago. Some boats carry aggregate from quarries to building works (we saw some in Uxbridge), some carry coal (we buy some of ours from one in Rugby) and apparently Tescos is using canal boats again in the West Midlands. But one boat we saw sells fold up bikes and another sells Ecover products to make sure the canals get cleaner. All change!
