WORK will start imminently on restoring canal locks which helped paved the way for Newport becoming the city it is today.

In the next few weeks, archaeologists will begin restorative work at the Cefn Flight - part of the Fourteen Locks Canal, Rogerstone.

The CADW-listed locks 20 to 17 will be “returned back to their heyday” over the next year with the help of £700,000 of Heritage Lottery funding.

Fourteen Locks education consultant Tom Maloney said the flight was an “incredible feat of architecture” when it was created in the early 1790s.

The section was cut into the hillside, rising 50 metres in half a kilometre.

It formed part of the Crumlin arm of the Brecon to Monmouthshire Canal that broke off at Malpas and headed up into the Gwent valleys.

Mr Maloney said: “This brought coal and iron from the valleys to the port.

“It was a major transformation and paved the way for the prosperity of Newport of today.”

Mr Maloney points to the fact that in the early 1790s, the population of Newport was under 1,000, but by 1851, it had risen to 19,000.

Restoration work on the half a kilometre section will be finished in 2010 - over 50 years since gates 20 to 17 were last in use.

Mr Maloney hopes this will pave the way for restoration work on the rest of the eight miles of the Crumlin arm, that runs to Pontywaun.

You can follow progress at www.fourteenlocksetr.co.uk