Spare a thought for surveyor Hodgkinson when he reported to the canal company that a
deep cutting was required at Harlaxton – he was fired!
Deep cuttings were bad news in the 18
th
century, when all had to be dug by pick, shovel
and brawn. At twenty feet deep, this was a huge and expensive task. Initially only built one
boat wide; two passing places were cut in 1801 to alleviate this bottleneck, with the total
length widened later.
No need for humpback bridges here! Two
bridges span the cutting; Grade 2 listed
Vincent's Bridge (67), see if you can spot
the 18
th
century graffiti! The other being
Bridge 66 on The Drift, between the villages
of Barrowby and Harlaxton. This was
rebuilt on its original buttresses in the early
1980s.
Work was carried out by EMDA & GCS in
January 2007 to clear the canal in the
cutting and the photos below show both
before and after the work.
HARLAXTON CUTTING
Looking upstream from Vincent’s Bridge
Looking upstream from Vincent’s Bridge
GCP Chairman (2007) Tony Wilkinson,
views the work
Looking upstream towards Harlaxton Drift
Land & Water removing tree trunks from the canal