The Romans constructed canal systems in Northern Europe and Britain for military transport and drainage. Although European waterway development went into decline with the fall of the Roman Empire, it revived in the twelfth century. In 1373 the Dutch invented the pound lock, a tightly closed chamber that could be flooded or drained as needed to allow a vessel to pass between bodies of water at different elevations. The modern era of canal building in Britain coincided with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and lasted until the arrival of the railroads.
England's geography is diverse, and canals often pushed through well-populated areas. Thus, man-made obstacles as well as valleys, rugged hills, and changes in water levels at the junctions of rivers and canals tested the ingenuity of eighteenth-century engineers like Brindley and William Jessop (1745-1814), whose Grand Junction Canal sliced through the Chiltern hills. The innovations builders devised to meet the challenges of the landscape included locks, tunnels, and bridges and aqueducts.
Although the British did not invent locks, during the era of canal building in Britain locks became bigger and more complicated. Locks were an essential feature of canals wherever builders encountered a change in the level of the ground.
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