Geograph - photograph every grid square

Narrowboat "Resolution" is being steered into the right hand caisson very cautiously. Above it is the guillotine gate that will be lowered when the vessel is in place. (See the left gate, already down; that side's caisson is at the top of the lift, waiting to come down). The brick building is an original toll collector's office.

On the Trent and Mersey Canal, the Anderton Lift is an amazingly innovative 1870s Victorian structure designed to allow boats access to and from the River Weaver, some fifty feet (16 metres) below. A pair of channels leads along an aqueduct to the tanks (caissons) at the river end of the structure. The distance from the canal basin to the end of the structure is about eighty metres. The caissons are raised and lowered simultaneously between the canal and the river, counterbalancing each other to minimise energy requirements. There are many images on Geograph illustrating the lift in action.

SJ6475 : Narrowboat on the River Weaver at Anderton, Cheshire
SJ6475 : Narrowboat in the Anderton Boat Lift, Cheshire