Falkirk Wheel to give country a lift

Published on Friday 24 May 2002 01:00

THERE’S barely a noise or a trace of movement. Not a clunk, not a jolt, not a shudder. Yet just seven minutes after the giant Falkirk Wheel began its maiden voyage, our boat had been raised 115ft in the air, and transferred from one canal to another.

Just moments before, the tour boat had smoothed its way from the new Forth & Clyde Canal basin into what at first glance looks like a giant steel bottle opener, its blades carving out a huge sculptural arc in the otherwise flat landscape of central Scotland.

Then while the overcast skies erupted with a downpour of biblical proportions we sat open to the elements in the Wheel’s "cassion", a water-filled tank large enough to take as many as four barges, weighing in at 600 tonnes.

Then we were floating - this time in the air. It’s hardly believable in a machine of such enormous proportions, but only the gentle purr of the hydraulics gave any indication of movement. As the gleaming visitor centre built nearby slipped away below us, 420 seconds later we were gliding gently into a new aqueduct and on to the Union Canal and Edinburgh.

For after two years of planning and building and the spending of 17.5 million, the Falkirk Wheel, the world’s first rotating boat lift, Scotland’s latest landmark and an engineering marvel, is now in action.

Even a recent setback when vandals caused 100,000 worth of damage by breaking in, wrenching open a lock and flooding the complex, has not prevented the giant Wheel from turning.

And today, the Queen will officially open the monumental centrepiece of the 84.5m 68-mile Millennium Link - Britain’s largest-ever canal restoration project which reunites the Union and Forth & Clyde canals after a 69-year lapse.

For 111 years, the two great canals, linked at Falkirk by a staircase of 11 locks, were a major transport artery connecting Scotland’s east and west.

Boats would chug through their dirty waters, between Edinburgh and Glasgow, carrying coal, stone, food, wares, sewage and passengers. And before the advent of trains, it was the canals which provided the primary route for transport between Scotland’s two largest cities.

But 1933 brought to a close the chapter on the Falkirk locks and the link was dismantled and shut down. The Forth & Clyde, which had been in operation as a vibrant commercial waterway since 1790, closed on New Year’s Day, 1963, and the younger Union Canal, which opened when the Falkirk locks were built in 1822, was closed two years later in 1965.

But today marks the start of a fresh chapter in the canals’ history.

For when the Queen opens the Falkirk Wheel, she will not only be resurrecting an important facet of Scotland’s history and heritage. As well as reviving the link between Edinburgh and Glasgow, which has been redundant for nearly seven decades, she will be unveiling a triumph of engineering.

The state-of-the-art creation is being hailed as an "iconic" masterpiece and it is predicted about 250,000 people will visit the site this first year, with 160,000 going through the Wheel. And by 2006 the whole project is expected to have created 4500 jobs. Dundee architectural firm Nicol Russell came up with the original concept for British Waterways, the body responsible for the management and maintenance of the canals, while Edinburgh’s RMJM Architects masterminded the final design.

Guthrie Hutton, chairman of Forth & Clyde Canal Society and author of the newly published book "Scotland’s Millennium Canals", says: "The opening of the big Wheel at Falkirk is a huge event for the whole of the central Scotland canal system.

"The Wheel is an iconic 21st century structure and looks fabulous. Nothing like it has been built in the world before. It is bound to become a big tourist attraction and although the event is happening in Falkirk, it will inevitably have an impact on Edinburgh."

Lord Dalkeith, Millennium Commissioner, says: "The Falkirk Wheel is a wonderful new icon for Scotland which will provide a lasting legacy for generations to come. Not only is it resurrecting two of the most spectacular canals in the UK, but it is acting as a catalyst for regeneration, boosting the economy and providing new job opportunities across central Scotland."

And Jim Stirling, director of British Waterways Scotland, adds: "In completing the Millennium Link, something amazing has been created for the people of Scotland - now and for the future."

Today also marks the official re-opening of the Union Canal which, although widely in use, has remained formally closed since 1965. While rowers never stopped using the canal, larger boats were barred and it was effectively closed to commercial traffic. But when the Pride of the Union, a large restaurant barge owned by the Bridge Inn at Ratho, appeared on the canal in 1974, the ban has remained in place only in theory.

The Wheel has certainly eased life for all those using the canals.

Before its opening it took around 24 hours to negotiate the series of no less than 11 locks linking the Union with the Forth and Clyde canals.

Not only that but because of its clever design it uses the power of just two electric showers to rotate.

Hutton has been campaigning for the "survival and revival" of the Union and Forth & Clyde canals since their closure in the 1960s.

"By closing them, they were made derelict and became unsightly and something of an eyesore for every bit of Scotland through which they went. The only way to make those bits of Scotland look better and come alive again was to bring the canals back into use," he says.

"If the authorities didn’t exactly encourage boats to come back on the canals, they certainly didn’t discourage them."

He is not alone in his delight at the revival of the historic canals. Bill and Sandra Purves, of the Edinburgh Canal Society, organise trips along the Union Canal aboard their vintage boat, Launch Kelvin, which will be on display at today’s royal opening ceremony.

"We’re all celebrating. We’ve come from a stagnant, muddy ditch to a working canal and it’s an absolute joy to come through it," grins Bill.

The Union Canal was originally built to transport coal into Edinburgh and was also a convenient channel to get rid of the city’s sewage, which was loaded on to dung boats at a wharf at Redhall. Edinburgh’s horse and human waste was taken west of the city to fields in Ratho and Polmont and the same boats would carry vegetables and fresh produce back into the city.

Hutton says: "Ratho fields are so enriched by this ancient commodity that they are now able to produce world records of wheat per acre. There was no proper sewage system at that time and the canals offered ideal ways of getting rid of rubbish and waste."

On a more palatable note, he adds: "It’s a fabulous waterway and it is part of our heritage. The three magnificent aqueducts - Slateford, Almond and Avon - are probably the finest of their kind in Britain. There’s some Scottish architectural gems there that need to be promoted."

While the Forth & Clyde was a major industrial waterway until the First World War, when the closure of the Forth ports stopped trade coming into the canal, the Union Canal’s commercial life was short-lived. Running parallel to the Union Canal, the Edinburgh-Glasgow railway line, which was built in the 1840s, offered a much faster means of transport.

Instead it became used as a leisure facility. Rowing took place, while families and school parties would hire boats or take holidays on the canal. John Johnson’s Edinburgh boat-hire and barge business was famous in the first half of last century.

Perhaps holidaying on the Union Canal and taking a fortnight to get to Glasgow will no longer just be a historical event.

Hoping for a repeat of ‘most successful tour’

THEY were the Royal celebrations that were to be remembered as the Queen’s "most successful Scottish tour ever".

Enthusiastic crowds greeted the monarch at every turn as she visited the Capital on a tour of Scotland to mark her Silver Jubilee. Before she set off on her journey to meet the people, there had been talk among cynics that the occasion would not match the scenes seen in 1952, when she travelled around the UK to mark her Coronation.

But the celebratory mood that sprung up where ever she went led contemporary reports to describe the tour as the greatest seen in Scotland.

At the start of her 25th year as sovereign, the Queen stressed to her advisors that the keynote of the jubilee was to be the unity of the nation. During the summer months she embarked on a large-scale tour, having decided that she wished to mark her jubilee by meeting as many of her people as possible. No other monarch had visited so much of Britain in the course of just three months. The home tours began in Scotland and she spent a week in Edinburgh at Holyrood Palace, where she was greeted by an enormous crowd.

In a memorable speech given during her time in the Capital, the Queen reminded Scotland of her Coronation pledge "to serve all peoples of the United Kingdom".

Street parties were held in communities throughout the city - most memorably in Craigmillar where the Queen herself stopped by to visit. Huge crowds formed on a bright and sunny May 25 to witness the monarch’s visit to the area’s Jack Kane Centre.

Greeted by loud cheers, the Queen, accompanied as always by the Duke of Edinburgh, smiled and waved before accepting a posy of flowers from local school girl Sharon Cochrane.

Timetable for Jubilee in Scotland

THE Queen and Prince Philip were today continuing their seven-day Golden Jubilee tour of Scotland after arriving in Edinburgh yesterday.

Today the Queen was to confer city status on Stirling, one of five towns to be upgraded in recognition of her Jubilee, shortly before 2.30pm.

Later she was to open the Falkirk Wheel, the centrepiece of an 84.5 million project to create a continuous canal link across central Scotland.

A public walkabout was planned along with the unveiling of a commemorative plaque.

At 6pm the Queen returns to her base at Holyroodhouse to officially host a reception at the palace to mark her Golden Jubilee.

On Saturday at 10am, the Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, will officially open the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland after a spectacular parade up the Royal Mile which will leave the Palace of Holyroodhouse at around 9.40. The couple will later give a Garden Party at the Palace at around 3pm.

Only one official engagement has been planned for Sunday - a church service at St Giles’ Cathedral for which she will arrive shortly before 10am.

After leaving Edinburgh next week, the Queen will become the first public figure to address a regular sitting of the Scottish Parliament when she visits MSPs at their temporary base in Aberdeen.

She will also open the new home of Scottish Contemporary Dance on a planned visit to Dundee.