Letting the  Bath Water Out
The deep lock at Widcombe was created during a road widening about 30 odd years ago and at 19ft 5ins is about thrice the depth of many canal locks. it can be quite daunting when you are at the bottom and the water starts rushing in.  With a 2oft head it comes up under the boat with quite a rush. When we came up it felt like the boat was running over corrugated iron as the water made the boat vibrate.
From my calculations this lock must require 120,000 gallons of water each time it is used. the pound which it draws this from does not look adequate.

Here we see a hire boat that has found this indeed to be the case. It became  grounded in the pound and later could not get over the lock cill.










When the people operating the lock behind them would not let water through to refill the pound in case they
ran aground themselves we decided to leave them to it.