The Winter 2009 issue of NarrowBoat included the following features.

You can purchase back issues online - click here for our shop.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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