Spring 2010 - Issue 17

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The Spring 2010 issue includes the following features. You can purchase this magazine from our online Shop.

You can read the articles in this and all other NarrowBoat issues online by becoming a NarrowBoat subscriber.

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Historical Profiles

Macclesfield Canal

Tim Dawson looks at a canal that was built “almost too late”; when it opened in 1831, the railway era had begun

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Famous Fleets

L.B. Faulkner

Alan Faulkner looks at the fleet operated by his namesake Laurence Faulkner from its base in Leighton Buzzard

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Last Traffic

Roger Wickson's Narrowboats

A series of photographs taken in the twilight of commercial narrowboat carrying around Hawkesbury Junction and the Grand Union Canal

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Canals That Never Were

The Polbrook Canal

Richard Dean highlights a mystery surrounding a Cornish canal project: The Polbrock Canal

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Traditional Techniques

Brindley Gates

Hugh Potter looks at an ingenious system to prevent loss of excess water in the case of a canal breaching. Thought to have been invented by James Brindley, there is serious doubt that the system would have worked, despite being installed on several canals over several decades

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Early Campaigning

Cressy: The Missing Years

What did happen to Cressy between Tom Rolt's uncle Kyrle Willans selling her in 1930 and buying her back in 1936? Hugh Potter discovers that she was owned by a journalist in Leicester who was also a keen waterway campaigner

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Picturing the Past

The Kimberley Experiment

In 1952 British Waterways trialled a system whereby people could take a working narrowboat from Wolverhampton to Weston Point Docks and return with a load of spelter. Not surprisingly it was not liked by the working boat community and was short lived. Will King spent a week on Kimberley and kept a photographic diary

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