The Falkirk Wheel

This is a really fascinating piece of engineering. The Falkirk Wheel is a rotating boat lift linking the Forth and Clyde canal with the Union canal near Falkirk, as you might have guessed. The canals have been reopened and renovated fairly recently, but the flight of eleven locks that previously joined them had mostly been destroyed and built over, so this boat lift was created to replace the locks. Apparently it used to take a whole day to navigate the entire flight of locks, but the new method takes less than twenty minutes.





Mum, Dad and I went for a look, read up a little in the information centre, then watched the wheel in operation. We declined the opportunity of a boat trip up and down again, and instead watched the workings which would not have been visible from the boat. The upper canal has been built out from the hillside, through which it has passed in a tunnel, onto an aqueduct that juts out over a large pool beside the lower canal. The boats enter the wheel area, which is then completely sealed before the wheel rotates, bringing one boat up to the top while another comes down.


We walked up to and through the tunnel and along the canal a little way, passing a couple of locks and a pair of very cheery lock-keeper types who chatted about this and that. I thought briefly about walking back all the way to Edinburgh along the towpath, but instead opted for a ride in the car, including a stop off and Marks and Sparks where we indulged in an orgy of biscuit buying. A grand day out.