The most important traffic on the canal was coal; other goods carried were gravel, road stone and manure. The canal was taken over by the Ambergate, Nottingham, Boston, and East Junction Railway in 1855 and traffic steadily declined. It was disused by 1928 and finally abandoned in 1937, except for the 2¼ mile (3.6 km) section that ran from Lenton Chain to the River Trent through the city centre which was transferred to the River Trent Navigation and is still in use today.
The first entry point for walkers is a red footbridge which crosses the canal to allow access across the waterway to those who live within the housing estate. It is probably these people who demanded that the lock and junction should be fenced off as local children were playing near the bridge when I visited the area in 1996.
The Nottingham Canal headed north from Lenton Chain but no boat has travelled this way since 1937 when the whole of the route north of here was closed. Most of the canal between Lenton and Wollaton has long since disappeared but it used to head north, on the east side of Lord Middleton's estate, Wollaton Park
The maximum boat size that can navigate the Nottingham Canal is
length: 79' 9" (24.3 metres) - Castle Lock
beam: 15' 2" (4.62 metres) - Castle Lock
height: 8' 0" (2.44 metres) - Chain Lane / London Road Bridge
draught: 4' 0" (1.22 metres) - cill of Castle Lock