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The Working Boats
Project
The Working Boats Project was set up
in 1999 with the objective of rescuing and preserving a number of
ex-working canal boats and setting up an educational programme. A group
of volunteers was recruited to operate maintain and interpret the boats.
They preserve the skills required to maintain and operate these craft.
When the canals were built at
the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries the boats which
were employed on them were the equivalent of today's heavy lorries. They
carried the goods that continued the Industrial Revolution. They are
central to any study of the origins of the industries that were central
in forming the industrial heart of this country as we know it.
The majority of the boats were built by the
original canal carrying companies and were taken over in 1948 when the
Waterways were nationalised under the Docks and Inland Waterways
Executive, this body in time became the British Waterways Board, and the
fleet was operated as a National Carrying Fleet until 1963. Since then
some private operators continued carrying for a short time and there
are still some boats in the hands of enthusiasts who retail coal and
fuel to other boaters. However today carrying trade has effectively ceased on the canals.
The
boats were sold off for conversion to leisure use or transferred to
Canal Maintenance. Over the years these original boats have declined in numbers
and the Heritage Working Boats project has taken over some of the best of those remaining in
British Waterways hands.
The boats have been restored to the
livery
appropriate to the time when they were in use. |
