These paired locks had double sets of gates to control the tidal flow up from the Mersey as well as the downhill water from the navigation level above it. After the building of the Manchester Ship Canal across the entrance to the Weaver, the lower water level became much more controlled and Sutton Locks became virtually redundant. They stood open both ways for most of the time, an awkward anachronistic constriction to traffic. In the 1950s a new deep cutting by-passed them altogether and the locks and their approach waterways became a boat graveyard, the last resting place for dozens of redundant carrying craft as canal and river traffic dwindled.
Dredgings have now been dumped over many of the up- river wrecks and it is possible to walk out from the towpath to the island on the offside of the locks, created when the by-pass navigation was cut
Thanks to Tony Lewery from whose article i have shamelessly copied and pasted @ www.canaljunction.com/news/info12.h...ete would allow access to more of the hulks:)
Dredgings have now been dumped over many of the up- river wrecks and it is possible to walk out from the towpath to the island on the offside of the locks, created when the by-pass navigation was cut
Thanks to Tony Lewery from whose article i have shamelessly copied and pasted @ www.canaljunction.com/news/info12.h...ete would allow access to more of the hulks:)