Hirst Wood Lock

There are eleven locks and an aqueduct on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal between Shipley and Skipton. The nearest to Saltaire is Hirst Lock - an uncomplicated single rise lock situated about half a mile out of Saltaire. It raises the canal 10 feet 2 inches (over 3 m) to a height of 216 feet (about 66 m) above sea level. It's a really pleasant walk along the towpath on a summer evening, and there's generally plenty to look at (and photograph).

Some of the more complicated 'stair' locks - the two-rise at Dowley Gap and the three and five-rise locks in Bingley - have lock keepers on duty in the summer months, to assist holiday-makers who have hired narrowboats and who may not be entirely familiar with the complex sequence of moves required to fill and empty the locks. But it seems that Hirst Lock is deemed easy enough, even for novice boaters. There is, however, a notice reminding people how not to waste water.

In times past, there was apparently a two-storey lock keeper's cottage here at Hirst Lock, alongside Hirst Farm, but both these buildings were demolished in the first half of the twentieth century.