The balance pit is likely to have been a part of the lifting mechanism at the site, whereby a tub boat mounted on a wheeled carriage would be lifted up along the incline, powered by a counterweight consisting of a large 'bucket' gradually filling with water; the bucket would have had to weigh 15 tons to lift an average tub boat. The Bude Canal served the hilly landscape around the border between Devon and Cornwall, and was largely used to transport sand containing lime to be used in agricultural fertiliser.
This is part of the Job: CIP01/71A Cornish Industrial Archaeology Photographs 71A; within the Collection: CIP01 Cornish Industrial Archaeology Photographs
Source: Historic England Archive
Creator of Archive: Falconer, Keith
Georgian Inclined Plane, Georgian Canal
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