Below is the Caen Flight, but it is so steep the Kennet and Avon canal appears to be dropping off the edge of the hill.

Towards the top end of Caen Hill flight. The sign on the left says that the near lock is named after Sir Hugh Stockwell president of the Kennet and Avon Trust.

View down the Caen Hill flight of 16 locks on the Kennet & Avon Canal, West of Devizes, Wiltshire; this is part of a set of 29 locks lowering the navigation level a total of 108’ 8” in 2 1/4 miles.

Taken by C Langham of Gloucestershire from an over-bridge of lock above, shows one paddle drawn to equalise the water level in preparation for a boat going down into the lock; the level is now correct and the gates have drifted apart, so require opening by the crew, prior to the boat continuing.

The sorry sight that was the Caen Hill flight of locks as they were in 1977 gives some idea of the debt of gratitude we owe to all of those volunteers who worked so hard in many different capacities to restore this wonderful flight of locks to the splendid sight it presents today

At the time of this photograph, the huge task of restoring these locks had been started, but by no means finished.

Near the top of the Caen Hill flight with the Keepers House Cafe in the background

In the 1970s Nicholson's guide to the Waterways of the south west said "The scale of the whole flight is most impressive. All of it is of course unusable; the gates are missing, the intervening pounds silted or overgrown. One or two have even been turned into pastures, horses now grazing where the water to fill the locks was stored. The task of restoration is enormous, but work is slowly getting under way. Pounds are being cleared, but the major task of lock restoration still lies ahead."

Each lock has a side pond to replenish 60 000 gall (273m3) water lost each time it is used.

There are 16 locks rising nearly 131ft in the Caen Hill flight. The locks are so close together, each needs a side pond to ensure there is enough water to fill both the lock and the pound between each lock.

The side pools, or reservoirs provide the 'header-tanks' required to keep the Caen Hill locks operating. Each lock has a large reservoir. Pre-Victorian engineering.

This is taken looking upwards from the middle of the Caen Hill flight of locks, and shows the lamentable state of these locks before their restoration.

On the first (at time of writing, there could easily be more) day that dust from the eruption of a volcano beneath the Eyjafjallajoekull glacier in Iceland put a stop to air travel in UK airspace the possibility for "spectacular sunsets" was played out in the media. In the event the dust has noticeably reddened the sky and seems to have dimmed the sun beyond what would normally be expected for these conditions but without an excess of spectacle.

At this time in the evening the canal is quiet with all boats supposed to have cleared the Caen Hill Flight well before sunset and such was the case here. The spectacular sunset failed to the arrive but did so to a rather restful audio soundtrack of splashes from fish leaping in the side ponds and of the singing of two competing robins. The birds took it in turns to sing from my right and then left as it would seem that the canal towpath forms the border of their territories.

A view upwards of the locks of the famous Caen Hill flight as they stood derelict in 1977, before their restoration by dedicated volunteers.