DVF wrote:I've been told conflicting stories about there being locks there, where Craighall Road starts to go down the hill at the end of Spiers Wharf, where the Monklands joined the Forth and Clyde, anyone know for sure?
I've got old streetmaps and O/S maps, and none of them show any locks
there. I think there was a small lift bridge of some kind where Craighall Road
passed over the canal. The current isolated section at the basins is connected
to the part at Spiers Wharf via some form of pipe. I read in the Evening
Times a while back that they are planning to restore the 'lost' section and
build some sort of "Marina" at the area of the Basins. A good idea AFAIC,
and if you've been to the Falkirk Wheel and clocked the amount of people
who visit something that's in the middle of nowhere, it could be a winner.
DVF wrote:Also at the junction of Castle St and Baird St/ Royston Rd, just a couple of feet into Castle St, you go over a small bridge with the pedestrian walkway underneath. That bridge is, apparently, the original Monklands Canal bridge from a hundred or so years ago.
Yes, that bridge carried the road over the canal. It went out of use in the early
1960's when the Monkland Canal was all but abandoned.
There are remaining sections near Easterhouse and in Coatbridge. At the
Canal Basins at Port Dundas, there's a small brick building - it's a pumping
station - at the south east corner of the Basin. This was where the Monkland
Canal came in and is easily noticable. You can hear the water pouring in
through the pumping station and you can see it entering the basin at that point.
There was talk in the early 1990's of re-opening the entire canal. Cant
see that happening though - the M8 was built on it's entire length between
Easterhouse and Port Dundas. Would be nice though. unlike the restoration
of the Forth & Clyde canal, they'd need to build a lot of new infrastructure.
The Blackhill Locks for example are totally gone.
James H