Maryhill Basin

It has been a stunning day in Glasgow with beautiful blue skies. This afternoon I was up at Maryhill Post Office, so I made a detour to Maryhill Locks.

This is the Basin beside Lock 24 on the Forth and Clyde Canal. There are five locks in this flight, which is known as the Maryhill Locks. Numbered 21 to 25, they assist the canal in its descent into the Kelvin valley, and each lock is connected with its neighbour by an oval basin. Each lock in the Maryhill flight is designed to hold enough water in the basin between it and the next lock to allow more than one vessel to use each lock at once, making the system more flexible.

This flight of locks and area take their name from a struggling heiress, Mary Hill, whose fortunes took a turn for the better when it was proposed to run the canal through her Gairbraid Estate. Her stipulated condition for feuing the ground for the village was that it should take her name. This village then became a thriving community with a number of typical canal-side industries, including a boatyard and timber yard.
G Hutton 1998.