Weston Lock

Weston Lock is a canal lock with gates, built in the early 18th century, around the time the Avon Navigation was opened in 1727. The engineer responsible for its design was John Padmore, with Ralph Allen and John Wood the Elder as promoters. The structure is made of ashlar or dressed limestone blocks, with some rubble and wooden gates, along with some cast iron details.

It features two pairs of original heavy gates, with the beams located on the north side, supported by an arc of stone curbing set into the rising embankment. The long lock basin walls extend approximately 55 meters and have flush rounded copings made of heavy stone. At the upstream end, the walls flare out into quadrant returns, while at the downstream end, the south wall includes a flight of eleven very steep steps against a set-back retaining wall, which is stopped with 20th-century sheet piling. The north wall also has a steep set of ten steps leading to a narrow landing, which is supported by a retaining wall that returns to a quadrant. There is an additional run of approximately 35 meters of high retaining wall made of ashlar with rounded coping, elevated above the path level. This lock remains mostly unaltered and was constructed on a short section of canal, sometimes referred to as Locksbrook Cut, to bypass a bend and weir in the River Avon.