Bascote Locks

Bascote locks form a flight of four locks on the Grand Union Canal, which is part of the British canal system and connects London and Birmingham. The lock flight has a staircase, and at the highest lock the remains of older narrow locks can be seen.

The locks are on a section of canal which was originally part of the Warwick and Napton Canal. When authorised by an Act of Parliament in 1794, it was intended to be a 17.8-mile canal from a junction with the Warwick and Birmingham Canal at Warwick to the Grand Junction Canal at Braunston, and was called the Warwick and Braunston Canal. Construction began in 1795, but in August a yeoman from Barford called Charles Handley suggested that £50,000 could be saved if the canal terminated at Napton on the Oxford Canal instead of Braunston. A second act was obtained in 1796, authorising a new route from near Offchurch, where the canal crossed the Fosse Way Roman road, and the company became the Warwick and Napton Canal company. Bascote Locks are on this revised route, and would not have been built had the original route been followed.

Wikipedia