page_title: Toll point
hierarchical_section_title: Toll point
caption_attribution_description: English: A typical octagonal toll house on the Birmingham Old Main Line Canal at Smethwick Top Lock, near the Engine Arm Aqueduct, Smethwick, England. However this is a modern reconstruction in octagonal BCN style. Photographs in (Birmingham's Canals, Ray Shill, 1999, 2002, ISBN 0-7509-2077-7) show a rectangular pitched-roof building, and a plaque at the site describes the toll house as a reconstruction. There was a second, parallel set of three locks introduced by John Smeaton's reworking of the Old Main Line, when the Smethwick Summit was lowered by 18 feet. The entrance to the other set of locks was where the geese and flotsam are visible. Now dismantled and filled in. Photographed by me 1 May 2007. Oosoom
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: 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.
caption: Octagonal BCN toll house at Smethwick top lock
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