Route
The Fossdyke joins the River Trent at Torksey. A branch leaves the main channel, passes under the A156 bridge, and immediately enters Torksey lock, which is the only lock on the canal. It has six sets of gates, three sets facing Lincoln, and three facing the river, which is tidal at this point, and so its level can be higher than the level of the canal. The gates allow the lock to be used at most states of the tide. A steel footbridge crosses the lock near the road, and both the footbridge and the lock are grade II listed structures. The canal runs to the east, and then turns south, passing to the east of Fenton and Kettlethorpe. Soon it is joined by the A57 road, and turns east again. The road runs along the south bank, until Saxilby is reached.
At Saxilby, the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway crosses the waterway, to run along the south bank all the way to Lincoln. There was once a swing bridge beyond the railway bridge, which was removed in 1937, although the foundations are still obvious. Access over the canal at this point was re-instated in 1987, when a footbridge was installed. The original bridge was manufactured in 1884, and crossed the Great Northern Railway at Newark-on-Trent for 103 years before it was put to a new use. The A57 crosses to the north bank soon after the railway bridge. The River Till flows south and under the road to join the Fossdyke, after which a new marina has been built at Burton Meadows. Because the construction has breached the flood bank, it is protected by a flood gate. The canal crosses under the A46 road on the outskirts of Lincoln, and then over a drainage ditch, to run alongside the Carholme golf club. The final bridge carries the B1273 Brayford Way over the canal as it enters Brayford Pool, once a busy commercial wharf in the centre of Lincoln, but now a marina with the University on the southern bank. The unnavigable River Witham flows into the bottom end of the pool, and becomes the Witham Navigation when it flows out on its way to Boston.
Read more about this topic: Foss Dyke
Famous quotes containing the word route:
“By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an eidolon, named Night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule—
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of space—out of time.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“A route differs from a road not only because it is solely intended for vehicles, but also because it is merely a line that connects one point with another. A route has no meaning in itself; its meaning derives entirely from the two points that it connects. A road is a tribute to space. Every stretch of road has meaning in itself and invites us to stop. A route is the triumphant devaluation of space, which thanks to it has been reduced to a mere obstacle to human movement and a waste of time.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“In the mountains the shortest route is from peak to peak, but for that you must have long legs. Aphorisms should be peaks: and those to whom they are spoken should be big and tall of stature.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)