The Horseboating Society is a national society, with the primary aim being the preservation and promotion of Horseboating on the canals of Great Britain. The Society was founded on 19 January 2001 at the Ellesmere Port Boat Museum, and it is the only organisation in the UK solely dedicated to horseboating. [1]
Boat horses were the prime movers of the Industrial Revolution, and they remained at work until the middle of the 20th century. Today, horseboating is a way of recapturing the working lives of this former waterway community, especially the thousands of families and the tradesmen who kept the traffic moving.
On 4 August 2006, Robin Evans, Chief Executive of British Waterways, joined horseboat Maria at Portland Basin, where the Lower Peak Forest Canal meets the Ashton Canal. Maria is Ashton Packet Boat Company's flagship narrowboat and Britain's oldest surviving wooden narrowboat, built in 1854 by Jinks Boatyard in Marple, and still horsepowered to this day, i.e. permanently without an engine. [2] He took part in a taster session of driving boathorse Queenie along a section of the canal, and he proceeded to take Maria through Hyde Bank Tunnel by legging the boat from the cabin roof. This journey was also notable since Maria used to carry limestone (1854 to ca. 1904) from Bugsworth Basin to Ashton-under-Lyne, and the Society chose to commemorate this by re-enacting the journey, more than 100 years later. [3]
In 2007, the Society made a journey along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal to the World Canals Conference in Liverpool. The society was awarded a grant of £42,500 from the Heritage Lottery Fund for this journey and other activities in support of the World Canals Conference. [4] This journey was also part of British Waterways' "Coal and Cotton" event, celebrating the Leeds and Liverpool Canal's history of transporting coal from Leeds and Wigan to Liverpool, and taking cotton from Liverpool docks to Leeds. Maria duly carried sacks of coal, and samples of cotton supplied by the Merseyside Maritime Museum. [5] [6]
In May 2008, NB Maria was horse-drawn again, this time on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. She had been "legged" through the Standedge Tunnel in 2006, the first boat to have been legged through in 60 years at that time. This time, a UK Government minister and a local Member of Parliament took turns at legging Maria through the highest, longest, and deepest canal tunnel in the UK.
In 2012, NB Elland was horse-drawn for the full length of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, believed to be the first time such a journey had been made for 68 years, culminating in a demonstration pull through the new Liverpool Canal Link. [7]
In the annual Waterways Renaissance Awards 2008, jointly organised by the British Urban Regeneration Association and by The Waterways Trust, the Horseboating Society achieved the "Commended" award in the "Historic Environment" section.
The Society works closely with British Waterways, the Boat Museum Society, the British Horse Society, the Inland Waterways Association, the Towpath Action Group, the Institute of Historic Building Conservation, and the Shropshire Union Flyboat Restoration Society.
A barge is a flat-bottomed boat, built mainly for river and canal transport of bulk goods. Originally barges were towed by draft horses on an adjacent towpath. Barges have changed throughout time. From 1967 to 1983 barges were considered a flat bottom boat that was nineteen feet in length or larger. Today, barges may be self-propelled, usually with a slow-revving diesel engine and a large-diameter fixed-pitch propeller. Otherwise, "dumb barges" must be towed by tugs, or pushed by pusher boats. Compared to a towed barge, a pusher system has improved handling and is more efficient, as the pushing tug becomes "part of the unit" and it contributes to the momentum of the whole.
A towpath is a road or trail on the bank of a river, canal, or other inland waterway. The purpose of a towpath is to allow a land vehicle, beasts of burden, or a team of human pullers to tow a boat, often a barge. This mode of transport was common where sailing was impractical due to tunnels and bridges, unfavourable winds, or the narrowness of the channel.
A narrowboat is a particular type of canal boat, built to fit the narrow locks of the United Kingdom. The UK's canal system provided a nationwide transport network during the Industrial Revolution, but with the advent of the railways, commercial canal traffic gradually diminished and the last regular long-distance transportation of goods had virtually disappeared by 1970. However, some commercial traffic continued. From the 1970s onward narrowboats were gradually being converted into permanent residences or as holiday lettings. Today, approximately 6000 narrowboats are registered as 'permanent homes' on Britain's waterway system and represent a growing alternative community living on semi-permanent moorings or continuously cruising.
The Leeds and Liverpool Canal is a canal in Northern England, linking the cities of Leeds and Liverpool.
The Trent and Mersey Canal is a 93+1⁄2-mile (150 km) canal in Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire in north-central England. It is a "narrow canal" for the vast majority of its length, but at the extremities to the east of Burton upon Trent and north of Middlewich, it is a wide canal.
The Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal is a disused canal in Greater Manchester, England, built to link Bolton and Bury with Manchester. The canal, when fully opened, was 15 miles 1 furlong (24 km) long. It was accessed via a junction with the River Irwell in Salford. Seventeen locks were required to climb to the summit as it passed through Pendleton, heading northwest to Prestolee before it split northwest to Bolton and northeast to Bury. Between Bolton and Bury the canal was level and required no locks. Six aqueducts were built to allow the canal to cross the rivers Irwell and Tonge and several minor roads.
The Oxford Canal is a 78-mile (126 km) narrow canal in central England linking Oxford with Bedworth via Banbury and Rugby. Completed in 1790, it connects to the River Thames at Oxford and is integrated with the Grand Union Canal—combined for 5 miles (8 km) close to the villages of Braunston and Napton-on-the-Hill, a canal which soon after construction superseded much of its traffic.
The canal network of the United Kingdom played a vital role in the Industrial Revolution. The UK was the first country to develop a nationwide canal network which, at its peak, expanded to nearly 4,000 miles in length. The canals allowed raw materials to be transported to a place of manufacture, and finished goods to be transported to consumers, more quickly and cheaply than by a land based route. The canal network was extensive and included feats of civil engineering such as the Anderton Boat Lift, the Manchester Ship Canal, the Worsley Navigable Levels and the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.
A horse-drawn boat or tow-boat is a historic boat operating on a canal, pulled by a horse walking beside the canal on a towpath.
The Ashton Canal is a canal in Greater Manchester, England.
The Huddersfield Narrow Canal is an inland waterway in northern England. It runs just under 20 miles (32 km) from Lock 1E at the rear of the University of Huddersfield campus, near Aspley Basin in Huddersfield, to the junction with the Ashton Canal at Whitelands Basin in Ashton-under-Lyne. It crosses the Pennines by means of 74 locks and the Standedge Tunnel.
The canals of the United Kingdom are a major part of the network of inland waterways in the United Kingdom. They have a varied history, from use for irrigation and transport, through becoming the focus of the Industrial Revolution, to today's role of recreational boating. Despite a period of abandonment, today the canal system in the United Kingdom is again increasing in use, with abandoned and derelict canals being reopened, and the construction of some new routes. Canals in England and Wales are maintained by navigation authorities. The biggest navigation authorities are the Canal & River Trust and the Environment Agency, but other canals are managed by companies, local authorities or charitable trusts.
Dudley Tunnel is a canal tunnel on the Dudley Canal Line No 1, England. At about 3,172 yards (2,900.5 m) long, it is now the second longest canal tunnel on the UK canal network today.. However, since the Dudley Tunnel is not continuous this status is sometimes questioned:.
The Foulridge Tunnel is a canal tunnel on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in Foulridge, Lancashire. Also known as the Mile Tunnel, Foulridge is 1,630 yards long and was built by Samuel Fletcher, following Robert Whitworth's 1789 survey. The tunnel is the longest in the country to allow passage of canoes and kayaks.
Harecastle Tunnel is a canal tunnel on the Trent and Mersey Canal in Staffordshire between Kidsgrove and Tunstall. The tunnel, which is 1.6 mi (2.6 km) long, was once one of the longest in the country. Its industrial purpose was for the transport of coal to the kilns in the Staffordshire Potteries. The canal runs under the 195 m (640 ft) Harecastle Hill near Goldenhill, the highest district in Stoke-on-Trent.
Norwood Tunnel was a 2,884-yard-long, 9-foot-3-inch-wide (2.82 m) and 12-foot-high (3.7 m) brick lined canal tunnel on the line of the Chesterfield Canal with its Western Portal in Norwood, Derbyshire and its Eastern Portal in Kiveton, South Yorkshire, England.
The Outer Pennine Ring is an English canal ring which crosses the Pennines between Manchester, Leeds and Castleford. Its route follows parts of eight canals, and includes the longest canal tunnel in England. The ring was completed in 2001, with the opening of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. Much of the route is shared with the North Pennine Ring, which crosses the Pennines by a different route on the southern leg.
Dukinfield Junction is the name of the canal junction where the Peak Forest Canal, the Ashton Canal and the Huddersfield Narrow Canal meet near Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, England. The area has been designated by Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council as a conservation area.
The Wooden Canal Boat Society (WCBS) is a waterway society and a registered charity in England, UK, based at Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester. The society started as the Wooden Canal Craft Trust in 1987, and by 1995 the trust owned six boats; it was wound up in 1997, and its assets were handed over to the WCBS.
The Canal & River Trust (CRT), branded as Glandŵr Cymru in Wales, holds the guardianship of 2,000 miles of canals and rivers, together with reservoirs and a wide range of heritage buildings and structures, in England and Wales. Launched on 12 July 2012, the Trust took over the responsibilities of the state-owned British Waterways.
