Monument record 1682/3/4 - Dam and Sluice, Kirby Hall

{1} A stone-built dam and related sluice had been constructed immediately upstream of the bend in the canal. It comprised a solidly built wall 1.5m thick , which was dressed on both sides with ashlar blocks around a mortared rubble core. It straddled the entire width of the canal which at the west was partially filled with sandy clay strewn with rubble. A central opening in the dam was linked to a sluice-gate at the far edge for controlling the level of water. A rebated ashlar remained in situ on its north side and another was loose in nearby rubble. The original channel was later blocked and the sluice modified so that the water was released through a timber trough. It is estimated that over 1,ooo cubic metres of water could have been held back, thus forming a refrective ribbon at the foot of the garden.
A sill or platform of elm planks was provided downstream to counter the erosiveness which would have been caused by the massive onrush of water when the sluice-gate was opened. Similarly, the stream-bed was widened and its sides were revetted by masonry. The platform stretched across the entire width of c. 4.6m and its indivdual planks, each 1.75m long, were fixed with iron spikes to three parallel joists which may have been further anchored by driven wooden piles.
The timber platform was originally covered by limestone rubble, possibly at the time when the sluice-gate was remodelled. As elsewhere within the stream-bed, such infilling may have prevented erosion by providing a purchase for vegetation. Pottery of late-eighteenth- or early-nineteenth-century types is assocaited, together with a milled lead window came with a date stamp of 1790.

<1> Dix B.; Soden I.; Hylton T., 1995, Kirby Hall and Its Gardens: Excavations in 1987-1994, p.341 (unchecked) (Report). SNN74020.

Record last edited

Aug 28 2014 5:01PM