Grand Union Canal – Leicester Section & River Soar – Lock 3 - Watford Staircase Lock 3 - Watford Gap, UK - Waterway Locks, Planes and Lifts on Waymarking.com

This is lock 3 on the Grand Union canal – Leicester Section & River Soar and is known as Watford Staircase Bottom lock or lock 3. There are seven locks at Watford Gap; locks 7, 2 and 1 are standard single width locks; locks 3 to 6 are a single width staircase of 4 locks. The staircase has a rise of 29’.

The Grand Union Canal - Leicester Section & River Soar runs for 66 miles through 59 locks from Norton Junction on the Grand Union Main Line in the south to the River Trent at Trent Lock in the north. The locks at the southern end up to Foxton are single width and the remainder are double width. The Foxton section is one of the pinch points that mean broadbeam craft cannot travel from north to south and vice versa. The other pinch points are in the Birmingham area.

The River Soar section is 40 miles long and was opened to navigation down to Loughborough in 1778. In the early days it was known as the Loughborough navigation and was extremely prosperous.

In 1794 the navigation was opened from Loughborough down to Leicester. In 1810 the navigation was opened from Leicester down to Foxton and from 1814 the complete link was made to the southern routes by opening the section between Foxton and Norton,

The Grand Union Canal was formed in 1929 from many separate canal systems and consists of:

- Grand Union Main Line
- Grand Union Leicester Section
- River Soar
- Erewash Canal
- Northampton Arm
- Aylesbury Arm
- Wendover Arm
- Slough Arm
- Paddington Arm

The lock numbering runs from 1 at the southern end up to 59 at the northern end; this is why the locks are numbered from 60 upwards on the Erewash canal which became part of the Grand Union in 1929.

Waterway Name: Grand Union Leicester Section & River Soar Connected Points: The Grand Union Leicester Section & River Soar links the River Trent in the north to the Grand Union Main Line in the south at Norton junction. It has arms to Market Harborough and Welford. Type: Lock Date Opened: 01/01/1814 Elevation Difference (meters): 2.00 Site Status: Operational Web Site: [Web Link] Date Closed (if applicable): Not listed

Visit Instructions:
Logs marked as “visits” should be made after physically visiting the waymark location. Include a picture taken during the visit. Notes may be logged by individuals who have visited the web site or looked at the online information and would like to provide comments or feedback on the waymark.

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   10/05/2015 ntpayne visited it