The LNER Encyclopedia

This is an extremely rare, probably a one off North Eastern Railway sign that possibly would have been originally located where the NER crossed a canal somewhere or possibly from some docks (Hull??) . The sign is regards to persons using boats passing through a lock. My question is does anyone know where it might have originally come from?

The North Eastern Railway actually owned several canals, including the Ripon Canal and the Pocklington Canal, which were acquired by some of its constituent companies. The sign clearly relates to the use and liability for any damage caused to the lock and would therefore have been located on the canal side and not on any bridge crossing the canal. I do not know how many locks were on the canals owned by the NER but this sign could have come from any of them, so its actual original location would be difficult to determine unless there was only one!

Tom.

Further to my posting above I have now found this map from the Pocklington Canal web site which shows that there were nine locks on that canal.

download/file.php?mode=view&id=16583

Tom.

Thanks Tom, I saw earlier after posting it that the NER owned the Pocklington and Ripon Canals and also the docks at Hull and Hartlepool, so like you say it could have come from anywhere unless someone has some specific info to say where it came from.

At Hull and Hartlepool any locks would have been under the control of a lockeeper who would be part of the docks staff.
The wording on the sign would not make sense in that situation.

I would agree with Tom that by far the most likely location would be at a canal lock, I have seen very similar ones myself.
Apart from a few exceptions canal locks were un-manned, the canal boat crews had to operate them themselves.

Alan

Yep, it sounds more likely it was located on an NER owned Canal, possibly the Pocklington.

I've since found out it came from a lock on the river Ure Navigation, it was sold in 2004 by GWR Auctions for an amazing £1900!

I'm not surprised at the price. I more or less gave up railwayana collecting in 2004 but I had never heard of such a sign in my 30 years collecting before that. The rarest sign I ever owned was the NER Electrification Overhead Wires sign from the Shildon-Newport system and I sold it for about £1000. It wasn't unique in that another 1 or 2 examples were known.