Twenty old canal lock gates, including 12 from the Caen Hill flight near Devizes, Wiltshire, on the Kennet & Avon Canal, are to be recycled for a project at the Glastonbury music festival later this year.

The gates, which weigh around two tonnes (1.97tons) each, were recently removed and replaced as part of British Waterways' (BW) winter maintenance works programme. However, BW is now going to use them to build a special bridge at the Somerset site to be in memory of Bella Churchill, who was instrumental in developing the festival.

Dale Marshall, BW's works planner, Kennet & Avon Canal said: "The iconic Caen Hill flight of locks combines both industrial heritage and wildlife. The lock gates that we removed may have come to the end of their working life in the water, but there's plenty of life left in them. "What better place for them to be used than at another iconic location, Glastonbury. Hopefully visitors to the festival site will be intrigued as to where the gates came from and come and visit their former home, during this the canal's 200th birthday year."

The gates were craned out of the canal by BW engineers earlier this year. To enable this - and ahead of the new gates being fitted - the canal was drained a lock pound at a time, with any fish rescued and re-homed further along the the canal. The empty locks were then inspected, repair works to the brick chamber walls made and the lock mechanisms refurbished, oiled and greased ready to be fitted to the new gates.

Pic: the Caen Hill flight of locks on the Kennet & Avon Canal