Colour photograph, 2001
Survey by RCAHMS
This unique rotating canal boat-lift was designed by Robert Matthew, Johnson-Marshall and Partners, in association with British Waterways in 1999-2000 as part of the Millennium Link Project. It connects the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Edinburgh and Glasgow Union Canal. The Union Canal is carried by tunnel under a railway and the Antonine Wall. An aqueduct leads the boats to the Wheel, which raises and lowers them through 25m to the Forth and Clyde Canal below.
The Union and Forth and Clyde Canals were originally connected by a flight of locks at Falkirk, which were demolished in the 1930s. The Falkirk Wheel is not only a spectacular feat of modern engineering, it is a fitting modern tribute to the canal age in Scotland.