When is a staircase lock not a staircase lock?

When it has the tiniest pound in between ( if you can call it that.)


As you can see the bottom gate of the last lock is almost on top of the next lock.



It did make us scratch our heads at first. I felt sure we should empty the bottom lock so as not to flood the surrounding area, but Ian was convinced that some sort of signage would be present if we had to do that. In the end we half opened the paddle on the top lock to see what would happen and sure enough it ran down a by wash into the canal below. So Ian was right again. ( He nearly always is much to my annoyance.)