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Ufton Lock

canal lock in Berkshire, England

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 12, 2025
Entity authorityQ2421566 ↗
Source-derived summary

Ufton Lock is a degated lock on the Kennet and Avon Canal, between Padworth and Sulhamstead, Berkshire, England.

History

Ufton Lock was built in c. 1834, making it the last lock on the waterway to be built. It was engineered by John Blackwell, who had dug a new 600-yard (550 m) cut to avoid the meandering River Kennet between Padworth and Sulhamstead. The lock's depth was just 1 foot 9 inches (0.53 m), which was to improve the head of water at Towney Lock, 0.6 miles (0.97 km) upstream. When the waterway was restored in the 1960s, restoring the shallow lock was deemed unpractical and instead the rebuilt Towney Lock was deepened to cater for the difference in level. The lock gates were removed, although the chamber masonry and bollards have been retained as a landing stage for the adjacent swing bridge.

The canal is now administered by the Canal & River Trust.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Ufton Lock” as canal lock in Berkshire, England. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ufton, Lock and canal.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1834—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Ufton, Lock and canal providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Ufton Lock”, the useful work is to connect “canal lock in Berkshire, England” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 12, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2421566. Authority coordinates are 51.413, -1.114. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1834.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Ufton Lock”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Ufton Lock primary sources, Ufton Lock archive and Ufton research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Ufton Lock”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ufton Lock” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.