“An écluse is a lock where the boats are either lifted or lowered, as the water course climbs up and down the various hills that were in the way when they built the canal.  In the case of the Canal de Briare, that was in the early 1600s, and included a thankfully now replaced set of seven very steep locks at Rogny-les-Sept-Écluse (Rogny of the Seven Locks) that climbed 30m in just 8 times that amount in length.”

The Silence of Travel & The Prodigious House