Page:Rivers, Canals, Railways of Great Britain.djvu/298



FOSSDIKE NAVIGATION.
THIS very ancient canal commences in the River Trent, at Torksey, about ten miles south of Gainsborough; from whence its course lies south-eastwardly, through a very flat and monotonous district to Brayford Mere, about a quarter of a mile west of Lincoln High Bridge. It is there joined by the Witham River, and at about five miles west of Lincoln the River Till falls into it, and these, together, supply the necessary lockage water.

This navigation is eleven miles in length, and level throughout. At Torksey there is a double lock, with gates pointed both ways, so that it equally prevents the entrance of the flood waters of the Trent, and peas up the water in the canal for navigation purposes; and, at its other extremity, is another lock into the Witham, for keeping up the water in the canal at a greater height than heretofore, and for preventing the flood waters of the Witham from entering it, which formerly did great damage to the banks.

As we are much in the dark respecting the time at which, or by whom this canal was excavated, it has afforded considerable scope for ingenuity and research. The celebrated antiquary and ingenious author of 'Itinerarium Curiosum,' Dr. Stukeley, in a letter addressed to Mr. Gale, August 2nd, 1735, states his belief that it was executed by the Romans as a continuation of Caerdike, a deep excavation, apparently made for the purposes of navigation, extending from the navigable River Nene, near Peterborough, in Northamptonshire, to the Witham, into which it enters at Washenburgh, a short distance below the city of Lincoln. He further states that the village of 'Torksey was a Roman town, built at the entrance of the Foss into the Trent, to secure the navigation of those parts, and as a storehouse for corn, and was walled about.'

The Doctor is borne out in this opinion from the account given in Domesday Book, wherein it appears, that before the coming of the Normans, Torksey was a place of considerable consequence, with two hundred burgesses, who possessed many privileges on condition that they should carry the King's Ambassadors, as often