 One
of the fascinations of the British inland waterways is the wide
variety of boats and barges that populate them. Today the
great majority are holiday cruisers custom-built for the
purpose, but until the 1950's the sight of a 'pleasure boat', as
the working boatman would rather quaintly call it, was still
unusual. Working boats were the norm, associated with the tiring
stress of work rather than the pleasure of leisure, and most of
the boat population were simply bemused by the idea that their
commercial working waterways would ever become the preserve of a
leisure boat business. But so it has become and although a small
proportion of the old carrying boats survive as reminders of
those utilitarian days, thousands more have rotted into the
rushes leaving nothing but memories and faded photographs. |
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Restored motor narrowboats at
the annual Easter gathering of working boats at the Boat Museum,
Ellesmere Port. |
| Most of these survivors have been
altered or converted to some degree, with extra cabins and home
comforts to suit modern sensibilities, but a significant number
have been preserved or restored to their original appearance by
dedicated enthusiasts. A few even manage to earn a living
delivering coal and fuel oil, and attempts are constantly being
made to develop new traffics that will again prove the
commercial sense of water-borne transport. But the twenty odd
ton payload of a Midland canal boat is very small in modern
terms, although the bigger barges on the Humber, Thames and
Severn rivers might still provide the breakthrough that the
waterways need, the renaissance of canal transport. In the
meantime we can continue to admire the traditional skills of the
boatbuilder in the examples that are left travelling the canals,
preserved in museums or tucked away in odd corners of the
waterway system. |
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Hulks of old Mersey flats
used as bank protection along the tidal River Mersey at Widnes.
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But the variety of styles and sizes of the
old working boats is so diverse that the uninitiated visitor,
however interested, can become quickly and understandably
confused. The intention here is to offer a very general
introduction to what is a complicated subject with some broad
subdivisions that might help your understanding and enjoyment of
our extraordinary waterway history. |
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| The small canal boats designed for an
eighteenth century canal system still manage to earn a living in
the twenty first. |
|
Steel Mersey barges at work
above Hulme Lock Manchester in 1970. |
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BARGES
The river navigations that the Midland
canals linked nearly all had their own workboat. |
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NARROWBOATS
Canal boats built small enough to travel
through the interconnecting Midland waterways. |
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Leeds
& Liverpool
Short Boats with round or transom sterns. |
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2
narrowboat fleets
Boats of Fellows Morton Clayton and Thomas Clayton (Oldbury). |
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Yorks
& Humber
Humber Keels fitted with leeboards &
driven by a big single square-rigged sail. |
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BCN
boats Joey
Boats and Birmingham Canal Navigation Tugs. |
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Thames
& Severn
Severn Trows and Thames Sailing Barges. |
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Maintenance
boats
and icebreakers. |
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East
Anglia
Norfolk Wherries and Fenland Lighters. |
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Horse drawn
boats Full
section about the boats, the horses, the job and the people. |
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Mersey
& Weaver
Mersey 'flats', deep sided barges about
seventy feet long by fourteen feet wide. |
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Brief bibliography for those who would like to pursue the subject further. |
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Colours of the Cut
- new book with illustrations & photos of traditional
working boat liveries. |
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