Summer 2018 - Issue 50

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The Summer 2018 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.

Front Cover: This view from the stern of a Humber keel shows what a wide expanse of river the Trent could seem when down at water level. In the distance, the company's steam tug Little John, is towing a Humber keel downriver towards Newark.

The Trent Navigation Company featured image

Famous Fleets

The Trent Navigation Company

Alan Faulkner studies the carrying arm of The Trent Navigation Company (Additional material supplied by Chris M. Jones)

View an excerpt.

Bow-hauling at Swinton Bridge featured image

Picturing the Past

Bow-hauling at Swinton Bridge

Chris M. Jones looks at the history of a humber keel depicted in an early 20th-century photo of the Sheffield & South Yorkshire Navigation

View an excerpt.

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Last Traffic

Documenting the Decline

Tom Chaplin discusses photos showing the latter days of canal-carrying, which feature in his recently published history of narrowboats

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Re-rerouting at Rednal featured image

Historical Canal Maps

Re-rerouting at Rednal

Richard Dean investigates a Shropshire mystery

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The Motor Boat Magazine featured image

From the Archives

The Motor Boat Magazine

Joseph Boughey delves through a collection of early 20th-century magazines to uncover details of commercial and pleasure boating of the period

View an excerpt.

Black-Sailed Traders of the Broads featured image

Working the Waterways

Black-Sailed Traders of the Broads

Mike Sparkes explores the history of the once-ubiquitous wherries that carried cargoes on the waterways of Norfolk and Suffolk

View an excerpt.

In Celebration of Raymond featured image

One Boat's Story

In Celebration of Raymond

Raymond, the last wooden working narrowboat built at Braunston, celebrates its 60th this year. We look at images of her taken between 1958 and ’70 when she was in service as a commercial-carrying boat

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Sights of the Birmingham Canal Navigations featured image

Picturing the Past

Sights of the Birmingham Canal Navigations

Chris M. Jones studies early images of the BCN and its once flourishing canalside industries

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