About
The Boilerhouse at Foxton Locks tells the remarkable story of one of the most ambitious and ultimately ill-fated engineering projects in British canal history. Situated beside the famous staircase of ten narrow canal locks on the Grand Union Canal's Leicester section, this small but absorbing museum occupies the restored boiler house that once powered an extraordinary inclined plane boat lift — a mechanical marvel built in 1900 to bypass the time-consuming locks, only to be abandoned and demolished just 28 years later.
Foxton Locks themselves are among the most spectacular features of Britain's inland waterway network. Two staircases of five interconnected locks, rising 75 feet through the Leicestershire countryside, were built in 1812 to connect the Leicester Navigation with the Grand Junction Canal. By the late 19th century, commercial traffic through the locks was severely congested, with boats sometimes waiting hours for passage. The Grand Junction Canal Company's radical solution was the Foxton Inclined Plane — a counterbalanced lift that could raise or lower two narrowboat-carrying caissons (water-filled tanks) simultaneously along rails up the hillside, completing in 12 minutes a journey that took 45 minutes through the locks.
The museum tells this story through photographs, engineering diagrams, models, and artefacts from the inclined plane's brief operational life. The lift was a triumph of Victorian engineering ingenuity — each caisson, filled with water and carrying a loaded narrowboat, weighed over 230 tons, yet the counterbalanced system required remarkably little energy to operate. Steam engines in the boiler house provided the motive power, and the building visitors explore today is the very structure that housed the boilers driving this remarkable machine. Sadly, the hoped-for increase in canal traffic never materialised as railways captured the freight market, and the inclined plane was closed in 1911 and demolished in 1928.
Today, visitors can explore the museum, walk the grass-covered site where the inclined plane once operated (with marker posts showing the rail tracks' path), and watch narrowboats navigate the staircase locks that the lift was built to replace. The contrast between the serene pace of modern leisure boating and the industrial ambition of the inclined plane provides a poignant commentary on the rise and fall of Britain's canal network. The Foxton Locks site, managed by the Canal and River Trust, is one of the East Midlands' most popular free attractions, and The Boilerhouse museum adds depth and context that transforms a pleasant canal-side walk into a journey through industrial history.
Categories:
Annual Visitors (2019)
300,000
Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
📅 Best Times to Visit
Quietest: Saturday morning
Busiest: Sunday afternoon, Bank Holiday Monday
💡 Visit on a fine weekend when the museum is open and boats are likely to be navigating the locks — watching narrowboats descend the staircase adds enormously to the experience. Arrive mid-morning to beat the crowds on sunny days.
💡 Visitor Tips
- Time your visit to watch a narrowboat navigate the staircase locks — the 45-minute process of descending (or ascending) ten interconnected locks is mesmerising and brings the museum's story to life. Summer weekends offer the best chance of seeing boats.
- Walk the grass-covered inclined plane site after visiting the museum. With the photographs and models fresh in your mind, you can mentally reconstruct the extraordinary boat lift that once operated on this hillside. Marker posts show the rail track positions.
- The museum has limited opening hours — weekends and Bank Holidays only, Easter to October. The locks and canal-side paths are freely accessible at all times, but check museum opening before travelling specifically for the exhibition.
- The car park can fill quickly on sunny weekends, especially Bank Holidays when Foxton Locks attracts large crowds. Arrive before 11:00 for the best chance of parking close to the site.
- Bring a packed lunch — the picnic areas beside the canal are delightful on a fine day, with views of the locks and passing narrowboats. The adjacent Foxton Locks Inn also serves food and drinks.
- The canal towpath in both directions offers pleasant walking and cycling. A short walk south leads to the attractive Foxton tunnel, while north the towpath continues toward Market Harborough.
- The museum is small but the inclined plane story is genuinely fascinating — allow 30 minutes for the museum itself, then at least an hour for the locks, inclined plane site, and canal-side walks.
- Best reached by car as public transport to Foxton is very limited. The site is well signposted from the A6 and Market Harborough.
Highlights
The Foxton Inclined Plane Story
The museum's central exhibition tells the extraordinary story of the Foxton Inclined Plane — a mechanical boat lift built in 1900 to bypass the congested lock staircase, and arguably the most ambitious engineering project ever attempted on Britain's narrow canal network.
The Grand Junction Canal Company, frustrated by boats waiting hours to pass through the ten locks, commissioned engineer Gordon Cale Thomas to design a lift that could carry loaded narrowboats 75 feet up the hillside in water-filled caissons running on rails. The counterbalanced system was elegantly simple in concept — two caissons, each weighing over 230 tons when filled with water and carrying a boat, passed each other on parallel tracks, the descending caisson's weight helping to lift the ascending one.
Steam engines in the boiler house (now the museum) provided supplementary power. Photographs, engineering drawings, models, and original components bring this lost marvel vividly to life.
The Boiler House Building
The museum building itself is a key artefact — the restored boiler house that powered the inclined plane's steam engines from 1900 until the lift's closure in 1911.
Visitors stand in the very space where coal-fired boilers generated the steam that drove the winding engines raising and lowering the massive caissons.
The building's industrial architecture, with its thick brick walls and functional design, reflects the utilitarian Victorian approach to canal infrastructure.
Interpretive panels explain the boiler house's operation — how coal was delivered by canal, water drawn from the canal to feed the boilers, and steam piped to the winding engines at the top of the incline. The building's survival when the rest of the inclined plane was demolished in 1928 was fortuitous, and its restoration as a museum preserves the last substantial standing structure from this remarkable engineering project.
Foxton Staircase Locks
The staircase of ten narrow locks at Foxton is one of the most spectacular features on the entire British canal network and can be observed from the museum and surrounding paths. Built in 1812, the locks are arranged in two flights of five, rising 75 feet through the Leicestershire countryside in a configuration where each lock feeds directly into the next without intervening pounds (stretches of level water).
Watching a narrowboat navigate the staircase — a process taking about 45 minutes and requiring considerable skill from the crew — is mesmerising and provides visitors with a vivid understanding of why the inclined plane was built to bypass them.
The locks remain in daily use by leisure boats, and their operation demonstrates canal engineering principles that have changed little in two centuries. The contrast between the surviving locks and the vanished inclined plane tells a story of the canal network's transition from commercial highway to leisure waterway.
Inclined Plane Archaeological Site
The grassy hillside beside the locks preserves the archaeological remains of the inclined plane, with marker posts and interpretive panels showing where the rail tracks, caissons, and machinery once operated. Walking the incline's path from the canal basin at the bottom to the upper canal, visitors can appreciate the scale of the engineering challenge — lifting boats and their cargoes 75 feet up a steep hillside using Victorian steam technology.
Concrete foundations, drainage channels, and the remains of the upper and lower canal basins are visible to the observant eye.
The archaeological interpretation transforms what might otherwise appear to be a pleasant grassy slope into a fascinating industrial landscape where visitors can mentally reconstruct the inclined plane using the museum's photographs and models as reference. The site has Scheduled Ancient Monument status, recognising its national importance as a surviving example of canal lift engineering.
Collections
The Boilerhouse museum at Foxton Locks houses collections relating to the Foxton Inclined Plane (1900-1911) and the broader heritage of Britain's inland waterway network. Holdings include photographs from the inclined plane's construction, operation, and demolition, engineering drawings and specifications, scale models of the lift in operation, original components and artefacts recovered from the site, canal-related tools and equipment, traditional narrowboat decorative art, and documentary material relating to the canal network's history.
The boiler house building itself is a key artefact — the last substantial standing structure from the inclined plane project.
The Foxton Inclined Plane
The museum's core exhibition tells the complete story of the inclined plane boat lift, from the congestion problems that prompted its construction through the engineering design, operational period (1900-1911), closure, and demolition. Photographs, models, engineering drawings, and original components bring this lost engineering marvel to life.
📍 Main Museum Gallery
Foxton Locks and Canal Heritage
Broader displays explore the history of Foxton's staircase locks, the Grand Union Canal's Leicester section, narrowboat culture, and the canal network's role in Britain's industrial development. Traditional canal arts, working boat life, and the transition from commercial to leisure use are covered.
📍 Canal Heritage Section
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.