CRT at work on the Claydon flight

We encountered CRT in two separate locations on the Claydon lock flight today. A team from Leeds was measuring Lock 20 so they could make replacement bottom gates the right size. The method was crude, to say the least. To measure the width of the lock at the bottom of the gates a tape measure was fixed to poles with masking tape and then lowered against the sides of the lock. It seemed that trial and error was used until the tape was the right length. I didn't get a photo of this, but witnessed the measurement of the angle of lean of the quoin. This involved leaning over the side, holding a spirit level vertical and measuring the distance out of true.

A little further on, at Claydon Bottom Lock, there was an altogether more intricate operation going on.

A new balance beam was being cut, chiselled and routed into the exact shape needed.

With the beam missing from the gate locking through was very slow. Only one bottom paddle was in operation, and the gate without beam was having to be hauled open by a beefy CRT man pulling on a rope.

They told me they'd been working on this lock for a week.

We had been in a queue of three; by the time we got through the lock an hour later the queue from the other direction was six deep.

We tied up at Cropredy at about 4pm. Banbury tomorrow.