While planning a sunny day trip to Wiltshire it occurred to me that I had some 1970s colour slide photographs of the Caen Lock flight at Devizes. The lock flight is a remarkable set of sixteen locks that let canal boats climb a Caen Hill and reach the town of Devizes. I got Tammy to print out the pictures so that we could do a "then and now" set. Peter Coleman (Stonehouse Wheelers member 2) took the 1970s images and Tammy took all the new photographs last Tuesday afternoon. These images are straight from Tammy's Sony RX100 MkII. Peter's slide numbering indicates that the date of the images is approximately mid nineteen seventies. There does appear to be some water in the canal but also a lot of weeds. There were no lock gates or bridges, not even derelict bits of them. From archive accounts it appears that all of these old structures were removed by fishermen and replaced by dams to maintain the fishes.

The first image is lock 42 near the top of the flight. The bottom of the lock was wet and without much weeds. The top layer of bricks are white faced. This lock was identified by the top paving layer. It gets thicker towards the gate, presumably to compensate for the bricks not being laid quite level.

Lock 42 in working order but the bricks look rather dull. There is a new ladder on the path side. There were no ladders on the path side of the canal so this looks like a modern addition. It is also full of water because a boat has recently passed on the way up. A plaque says that this lock is called "Monument", in honour of the Monument Trust.

Further down is lock 39 and this can be identified by the markings on the stones around the gate. The distant trees are apparently elms so this dates the photograph. Dutch elm disease destroyed these trees around 1975.

Lock 39 as it is today. Out of shot is a plaque to the Scaggs Foundation.

Looking back up the lock flight.  Weeds had taken over. Now it is looking well maintained and smart and indeed a popular day out with a café visible just to the left at the start of the flight.

Without gates and bridges you could see straight up the flight. If you click on the old image to make it bigger you should be able to see the fishermen's dams at each level..

From lock 28 there was no water to be seen, just weeds. Now fully operating and some boats moored. These boats were not heading anywhere as they had just lit their barbecues.