Following the restoration of the Anderton Boat Lift and the completion of the new Falkirk Wheel, there are now plans afoot to restore another ‘boat-lifting wonder’ of the waterway age - the Inclined Plane at Foxton, Leicestershire, a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Alan Barnes looks at the exciting plans.

A few miles to the south of Leicester, the route of the Grand Union Canal passes close to the small village of Foxton where a flight of ten locks raises the level of the canal by some 75ft. Built in 1810, these locks are still an impressive sight today and on summer Sundays attract large numbers of visitors to watch the colourful canal boats as they make their way through the series of locks against the backdrop of rolling Leicestershire countryside.

However, the lock flight is not the only attraction at Foxton. It is also the site of the remains of the Foxton Inclined Plane, a unique boat lift built between 1898-1900 in an attempt to improve the flow of traffic along the canal. With increased competition coming from the expansion of the railway network, anything that could be done to speed up the passage of freight along the waterways was given serious consideration. One of the larger operators, Fellowes Morton & Clayton, wanted to increase the size of boats which they used to move coal to London but the flight of locks at Foxton not only limited their boat size but also took them some considerable time to pass through.

Rather than re-engineer the entire flight, an alternative solution to the problem was to build an inclined plane boat lift running up the hill alongside the canal locks. This lift was eventually designed by Gordon Cale Thomas and built by W. H. Gwynne of Hammersmith, London.

Foxton Inclined Plane in its former glory with a boat and crew in each water-filled caisson. The gradient of 1:4 gave a journey time of 12 minutes - a vast improvement on the time taken to ascend the ten locks.

It was basically a very short railway with a gradient of 1:4 which had eight sets of railway lines and on these tracks ran two large tanks, or caissons, filled with water and capable of holding two narrowboats or a single 50-ton barge. The water filled tanks measuring 80ft by 15ft balanced each other and the lift was powered by a 25hp engine which gave a journey time of 12 minutes to take two boats up and two boats down, a great improvement on the average time taken to negotiate the locks. An additional advantage was the amount of water which was conserved by using the lift, which hardly needed any water at all, compared with the locks which needed 25,000 gallons per boat passage.

A steam engine housed in a separate boiler house was used to overcome friction and provide additional braking. This engine was also made by Gwynnes and may well have been a stock item designed for driving their centrifugal pumps or for use in large boats. It was a 25 hp twin cylinder jet condensing unit but steam experts have suggested that as the engine only ran for short eight minute bursts, the jet condenser would never have come into operation.

The lift worked extremely well, but operationally it was destined to be very shortlived as the locks further south at Watford Gap were never widened and the hoped-for increased canal traffic failed to materialise. In 1909 the locks themselves were refurbished for night use and the canal operating companies which had already introduced their ‘fly-run’ system. This involved the crews working the boats non-stop, with crew members taking it in turns to sleep, while the trips to and from London continued. This enabled the canals to compete more successfully with the railways and the need for the inclined plane reduced. As a result its use soon became uneconomic and in 1911 the lift at Foxton was effectively mothballed with all traffic going through the locks. eventually in 1928 all the machinery was sold off for scrap and the lift was abandoned.



When constructed, the boat lift at Foxton was the biggest and most modern ever built and although the Plane did not last any great length of time, it did provide the basis for the design of future boat lifts built all over Europe.
The locks are now a Grade II listed site while the remains of the Inclined Plane are a Scheduled Ancient Monument. In 1989 the Foxton Canal Museum was opened in the reconstructed boiler house and here visitors can learn about the lift and the commercial canal operations that existed in the area. Although the lift and its associated machinery and plant have long since gone, there are still traces to be seen but much of the site is now overgrown. The Foxton Inclined Plane Trust who run the museum and their partners have undertaken feasibility studies for the restoration of the lift although it would certainly be a considerable undertaking. Cost estimates nearly 20 years ago put a figure of £5m on such a project and now the venture would probably involve expenditure of nearer £8m.

Parts of the work are fairly straightforward. The canal arm approaches and basins for example, as techniques for basic canal restoration are now very familiar. However, care will be needed to prevent any leakage of water which may upset the stability of the steep slopes of the Plane. A return to steam power may not be possible, due to the unavailability of suitable steam plant, and although the restoration group are a long way from final specifications, electrically powered drives and winches seem to be the most likely option. However steam has not yet been entirely ruled out and English Heritage has asked the Partnership to continue their investigations and Kew Pumping Station has expressed a willingness to build a replica engine.

Using the existing railway line foundations has also been ruled out on the grounds not only of expense, but also the wish to preserve the Victorian archaeology of the site. A possible solution is to construct new foundations on deep piles with reinforced concrete tops which would sit alongside the originals using a three track system between the existing foundations or a four track system adjacent to the original.
Studies have also concluded that the completion of the restoration would add significantly to the tourism of the area attracting far more visitors to Foxton Locks than there are at present. To cope with this it has been recommended that a visitor centre also be built to provide information and to generate income to finance the running of the lift. This centre will have to be positioned carefully to avoid impacting unduly on a listed site.

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• My thanks to Michael Beech, the museum keeper at Foxton, for his help with this article and for the use of archive photographs from the Trust collection. n
n For further information on the Plane and the work of the Trust and its partners, visit their website at <www.fipt.org.uk>

End of the On-line article.
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