About a week ago I posted about the discrepancies in measurements at St Neot’s Lock and how the EA website quoted two different measurements in imperial and metric.
Well yesterday Paul from Waterways Routes took a trip to St Neots to visit the lock. He took along with him a 5 meter tape measure and proceeded to measure out the locks length and width. Here are his findings.
“I measured the length as 55.2m (181’1″) which matches with the 55m (180’5″) I measured from Google Maps earlier. Using a 5m rule there will be a small potential error in that. To play it safe I’m going to show it as 53.98m (177’1″) which makes it the same as the EA data in imperial measurements.“
“I measured the width across the lock (NOT the entrance) which comes to 4.27m (14’0″) between the concrete walls, which is reduced by 3.5cm each side by the looped hanging chains so the width for boats is 4.20m (13’9″). That was measured at the top of the walls and, as the lock was full, I couldn’t see if the walls tapered or if there were larger obstructions lower down. It’s likely that two 2.08m (6’10”) narrowboats without fenders could fit side by side with 4cm to spare, but I wouldn’t recommend trying it. What a shame they didn’t build the lock a few centimetres wider which would have cost nothing at the time. In practice the extra width within the lock which is wider than the lower gate is wasted and just means it takes much longer to fill or empty.”
The lock dimensions on the Waterway Routes maps will now be amended and included in the August edition. So when we say to people that the maps are the most up to date and accurate maps you can get, we’re not lying. We’ll see how long it takes for the EA to update their information.
Thank you Paul.
The August update of my maps was published yesterday evening (9th) and now shows the correct data for St Neots Lock.
Still not even an acknowledgement from EA about the mistake in their measurements that I emailed them about the day I confirmed their figures were wrong.