29 locks in 2.5 miles

Up this morning early and it's raining and the temperature has dropped, so much sothat it's a very chilly morning. We leave our. Mooring and team up with the boat Greyfisher and its owners Stephen and Julie, who previously we have shared locks with and who were going to be our companions for the next twenty nine lock, and as a bonus they had brought more helpers with them, in the form of their daughter Emma and her boyfriend Arran. So it was into the first lock and this and the rest of the locks went like clockwork, and in just over three hours and we had completed the Caen Hill flight and moored up for the night.

These locks are a marvelous sight and  a impressive piece of. engineering! they were engineer John Rennie's solution to climbing the very steep hill in Devizes, and were the last part of the 87 mile route of the Kennet and Avon canal  to be completed.

The dramatic change in height of the land at Caen Hill resulted in the need for 16 locks to be built in close succession. Because of the steepness of the hill there was not space to use the normal arrangement of water pounds between the locks and so engineer John Rennie had to build unusually large side ponds to replenish the water in each lock after use.

The locks and ponds were the last stretch of the  to Kennet and Avon canal be built in 1810 and form part of a longer 29-lock flight at Devizes, all packed into just over two miles. They are designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument – the same level of heritage protection given to Stonehenge.

Denise now has one arm like Popeyes arm after all of the opening and shutting of paddles and lock gates.