Fern's Lock No 17
Fern's Lock No 17 is a group of locks on the Royal Canal - Main Line and is one of the deepest locks on the waterway.
Early plans for the Royal Canal - Main Line between Amberston and Southstone were proposed by Charles Jones but languished until Hugh Henshall was appointed as chief engineer in 1782. Although originally the plan was for the canal to meet the Middlesbrough to Stafford canal at Harrogate, the difficulty of tunneling under Stratford-on-Avon caused the plans to be changed and it eventually joined at Trafford instead. Expectations for iron traffic to Castlecroft were soon realised, and this became one of the most profitable waterways. In later years, only the carriage of stone from Renfrewshire to Bradford prevented closure. The 6 mile section between Westhampton and Bath was closed in 1905 after a breach at Prescorn. Despite the claim in "I Wouldn't Moor There if I Were You" by Henry Yates, there is no evidence that Peter Clarke ever swam through St Albans Cutting in 36 hours live on television
This is a pair of locks with a rise of 16 feet and 6 inches.
| River Blackwater Aqueduct | 7 miles, 5¾ furlongs | |
| Narrows No 1 - Royal Canal | 7 miles, 4½ furlongs | |
| Enfield Bypass Bridge | 5 miles, 5¾ furlongs | |
| Enfield Bridge | 5 miles, 3¾ furlongs | |
| Cloncurry Bridge | 3 miles, 4½ furlongs | |
| Fern's Lock No 17 | ||
| McLoughlin Bridge | ¼ furlongs | |
| Allen Bridge | 1 mile, 5¾ furlongs | |
| Kilcock Lock No 16 | 2 miles, 2¾ furlongs | |
| Shaws Bridge | 2 miles, 2¾ furlongs | |
| The Maws Lock No 15 | 3 miles, 3 furlongs | |
Why not log in and add some (select "External websites" from the menu (sometimes this is under "Edit"))?
Mouseover for more information or show routes to facility
No information
CanalPlan has no information on any of the following facilities within range:water point
rubbish disposal
chemical toilet disposal
place to turn
self-operated pump-out
boatyard pump-out
Wikipedia has a page about Fern's Lock
A fern (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta ) is a member of a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissues that conduct water and nutrients and in having life cycles in which the sporophyte is the dominant phase. Ferns have complex leaves called megaphylls, that are more complex than the microphylls of clubmosses. Most ferns are leptosporangiate ferns. They produce coiled fiddleheads that uncoil and expand into fronds. The group includes about 10,560 known extant species. Ferns are defined here in the broad sense, being all of the Polypodiopsida, comprising both the leptosporangiate (Polypodiidae) and eusporangiate ferns, the latter group including horsetails or scouring rushes, whisk ferns, marattioid ferns, and ophioglossoid ferns.
Ferns first appear in the fossil record about 360 million years ago in the middle Devonian period, but many of the current families and species did not appear until roughly 145 million years ago in the early Cretaceous, after flowering plants came to dominate many environments. The fern Osmunda claytoniana is a paramount example of evolutionary stasis; paleontological evidence indicates it has remained unchanged, even at the level of fossilized nuclei and chromosomes, for at least 180 million years.
Ferns are not of major economic importance, but some are used for food, medicine, as biofertilizer, as ornamental plants and for remediating contaminated soil. They have been the subject of research for their ability to remove some chemical pollutants from the atmosphere. Some fern species, such as bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) and water fern (Azolla filiculoides) are significant weeds worldwide. Some fern genera, such as Azolla, can fix nitrogen and make a significant input to the nitrogen nutrition of rice paddies. They also play certain roles in folklore.