‘Stairway to Heaven’ – Hatton Lock Flight. COLOUR.

Description

Hatton’s famous flight of 21 locks was known as the “Stairway to Heaven” by the Boatmen who navigated their barges fully laden with coal, sugar, tea, spices and much more. Originally opened in 1799 to feed locally mined coal to Birmingham and Black Country factories and to connect London with the Midlands. State of the art locks were built at Hatton to fight off stiff competition from the roads and railways, widened in the 1930s, doubling capacity, accommodating 14 foot wide boats and two narrowboats side by side.
When the locks were completed, bands played and crowds gathered to watch HRH the Duke of Kent arrive by boat and cut the ribbon. But even with this major modernisation, the canals were never going to be able to compete and road and rail soon took over.

The A4 (21cm x 29.7cm) image is printed Canon Pro Platinum High Grade Professional Photo Paper.