In the United Kingdom a toll point or toll island is a place on a canal where a fee was collected as boats carrying cargo passed. These were sited at strategic points such as the stop lock at the transition from one canal company to another where water transfer was a concern, or at busy locks where water usage and pumping costs were an issue.
Generally this was at a lock or an artificially constricted part of the canal so that the boat had to pass within inches of the toll point unable to evade the toll. On canals where the fee was based on cargo weight it also put the boat in a convenient place to read the gauging mark height from the water line. On busy canals which were built with a towpath on either side such as the Birmingham Canal Navigations BCN New Main Line the toll house may have been built on an island between two constricted channels so that one toll point could collect from boats travelling in each direction. The BCN retains several of these islands, for example at Winson Green Junction.
Read more about Toll Point: Waterway Toll Fee, Gauging Point, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words toll and/or point:
“one is in a shoe factory cursing the machine,
one is at the aquarium tending a seal,
one is dull at the wheel of her Ford,
one is at the toll gate collecting,
one is tying the cord of a calf in Arizona,
one is straddling a cello in Russia....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Constancy in love is of two sorts: One is the effect of new excellencies that are always presenting themselves afresh, and attract our affections continually; the other is only from a point of honor, and a taking of pride not to change.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)