Catteshall Lock

This airlock is in the River Wey, near the town of Guildford, England. The sluice was built in 1764 and is the latest installment of Godalming Navigation. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was a point of much traffic. Many barges passed through here carrying large quantities of goods and ammunition that were destined for the Portsmouth naval arsenal. The War of Independence of 1780 and the Napoleonic Wars between 1793 and 1815 almost doubled the trade in these waters. An important part of the history of the area is the influence of the paper industry. In the seventeenth century the barges were carrying large amounts of timber to the paper mills that grinded wood pulp.