Friday, September 04, 2009

Waterways in Scotland

The waterways in Scotland are not connected to England at all, and consist mainly of the Celedonian canal. There is also a picturesque Crinan Canal in Argyll and Bute, and a recently restored Forth & Clyde and Union Canals in the Lowlands.

Scotland has a 137 mile (220km) network of inland waterways.

The Falkirk Wheel is the world's first and only rotating boat lift.

The Millennium Link was an ambitious £84.5m project with the objective of restoring navigability across Scotland on the historic Forth & Clyde Canal and Union Canal.

The challenge faced, was to link the Forth and Clyde Canal, which lay 35m (115ft) below the level of the Union Canal. Historically, the two canals had been joined at Falkirk by a flight of 11 locks that stepped down across a distance of 1.5km, but these has been dismantled in 1933, breaking the link.

What was required was a method of connecting these two canals by way of a boat lift.