Summer 2017 - Issue 46

The Summer 2017 issue includes the following features. You can purchase this magazine from our online Shop.

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Front Cover: On a misty morning in the early years of the 20th century, George Garside's pair of narrowboats, Rose & Nellie, are seen entering Paddington Basin with a delivery of sand from Leighton Buzzard. Nellie was built in the summer of 1899 and Rose the following winter. Sand was used by a number of contractors and builders' merchants at Paddington, including H. Sabey & Co, which set up business there at about this time.

Famous Fleets

Sand Boats

Sand was an important traffic on the Grand Junction Canal, particularly from the quarries around Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire. Alan Faulkner and Chris M. Jones look at the carriers that once transported this cargo, often into central London where it was in great demand in the construction industry.

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Last Traffic

Twilight on the T&M

Harry Arnold talks us through a collection of encounters with workings boats on the T&M, including the craft of Seddons Salt, British Waterways and the Anderton Canal Carrying Company

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Canal Finder

Dudley Canals

Andy Tidy goes in search of 13 miles of lost West Midlands waterways in the region to the west of the Dudley and Netherton Tunnels, once referred to as ‘the back of the map’ by working boaters .

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Time and Place

Fenland Carrying

Chris M. Jones looks at an early 20th-century image showing the carrying of agricultural produce in Lincolnshire

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Working the Waterways

Abandoned Boats on the BCN

Denis Cooper and Tony Lewery provide a fascinating story centred on the sunken joey boats once built and operated by Yates Bros of Norton Canes on the Cannock Extension Canal

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Picturing the Past

Trading from Wendover

Chris M. Jones explores the background of an evocative late 19th-century photograph showing independent carrier Edward Marshallsay, who was based on the Wendover Arm of the Grand Junction Canal

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Working the Waterways

Muck and Rubbish

Chris M. Jones looks at how canal boats were once used to carry sewage and refuse from major centres of population, like Birmingham and London, and the legislation that had to be adhered to

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From the Archives

Oral History Transcripts

Joseph Boughey examines the transcripts of two interviews with working boatmen describing carrying cargos on the Kennet & Avon Canal and River Weaver

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Working the Waterways

Elijah Duckett

Chris M. Jones looks at the life and craft of a boatman who specialised in carrying roadstone and occasionally fell foul of the Canal Boat Acts

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