Isfield Lock

A misty early morning seven mile walk along the Ouse from Barcombe to the newly restored Isfield Lock(and back). The photograph shows that the world sometimes really is monochrome. The Sussex Ouse Navigation dates from the canal mania of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.It was completed around 1812 with 19 locks making the river navigable for 22 miles above Lewes but was never a great commercial success, partly because it served no large towns and partly because the railways arrived in the 1840s. Trade on the upper Ouse ceased in 1868. The lock at Isfield served a paper mill. Its restoration by a group of volunteers has taken about 12 years.