Hail to the Hive!
Foxton Locks has 2 flights of 5 locks each but they are only wide enough for a single narrowboat to go up or down. In the Late 1800's the Fellows Morton and Clayton (FMC) Canal company proposed to take over the Leicester arm of the Grand Union and wanted to bring larger boats down to London but it was deemed impractical to widen to locks due to the volume of water that would drain out of the pounds so they built a boat lift to winch up boats inside a water trough.
This is all that remains of the boat lift and plans to restore it have stalled due to the scale of the project. I have to admit it would be an incredible feat to restore something that in itself was in operation for less than 20 years as the railways soon took on the burden of transporting goods long distances much faster than the canals ever could.
The area at the bottom of the ramp is now a permanent mooring location for people to live on their narrowboats year round.
I still find it incredible the feats of engineering that they would take on in order to bring goods from one place to another and it just shows the vast amounts of money the people involved were able to make from this lucrative trading back in the day.
It really makes you think and I don't think alot has really changed when it comes to greed and it's motivations.