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 by canal 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. Currently, about 8580 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 Black Country is an area of England's West Midlands. It is mainly urban, covering most of the Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall Metropolitan Boroughs, with the City of Wolverhampton sometimes included. The towns of Dudley and Tipton are generally considered to be the centre.
The Black Country Living Museum is an open-air museum of rebuilt historic buildings in Dudley, West Midlands, England. It is located in the centre of the Black Country, 10 miles west of Birmingham. The museum occupies 10.5 hectares of former industrial land partly reclaimed from a former railway goods yard, disused lime kilns, canal arm and former coal pits.
Eppleton Hall is a paddlewheel tugboat built in England in 1914. The only remaining intact example of a Tyne-built paddle tug, and one of only two surviving British-built paddle tugs, she is preserved at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park in San Francisco, California.
The Wench Is Dead is a historical crime novel by Colin Dexter, the eighth novel in the Inspector Morse series. The novel received the Gold Dagger Award in 1989.
Fellows Morton & Clayton Ltd was, for much of the early 20th century, the largest and best-known canal transportation company in England. The company was in existence from 1889 to 1947.
W. J. Yarwood & Sons Ltd were a shipbuilding company based in Northwich, Cheshire from 1896 to 1966.
RNLB Jesse Lumb is a historic lifeboat. Built by J. Samuel White in 1939, Jesse Lumb served as the lifeboat at Bembridge on the Isle of Wight from 1939 to 1970, becoming the last of her type in service. Since 2000 she has been preserved at Classic Boat Museum, Cowes. In August 1999 she was inscribed on the National Register of Historic Vessels, becoming part of the National Historic Fleet.
The Pensnett Canal, also called Lord Ward's Canal was a private 1.25 miles (2 km) long canal near Brierley Hill, West Midlands, England, which opened in 1840 and served the industrial enterprises of Lord Dudley's Estate. The engineer was Mathew Frost. Since its closure to navigation in 1950, much of it has been lost by overbuilding, but a small section at its junction with the Dudley Canal was restored in 1995, and the section through Brierley Hill remains in water, although it is polluted and not navigable.
President is a historic, steam-powered narrowboat, built in 1909 by Fellows Morton & Clayton (FMC) at their dock at Saltley, Birmingham, England. It is now owned by the Black Country Living Museum, where it is based. President is registered by National Historic Ships as part of the National Historic Fleet.
Bessie is a historic, single ended riveted iron day boat, built in 1895 for the Hartshill Iron Company. It is now owned by the Black Country Living Museum, Dudley, West Midlands, England, where it is based.
Birchills is a historic, ‘Joey’ boat with a small day cabin, built in 1953 by Ernest Thomas of Walsall. Birchills was one of the last wooden day boats made and was used to carry coal to Birchills Power Station and Wolverhampton Power Station. It is the only surviving 'Joey' with a day cabin.
Diamond was built by John Crichton & Co. of Saltney, Chester for Midland and Coast Canal Carrying Company of Wolverhampton. The boat was built in Chester in 1927 and first registered at Wolverhampton in 1928. She was one of six iron boats in the fleet fitted with two cabins for long-distance traffic between the Black Country and the ports on the Mersey Estuary. Having been damaged during an air raid on Birmingham in 1944 she was sold for scrap to Ernest Thomas by Fellows, Morton & Clayton who had by then acquired Midlands and Coast. Rebuilt and renamed ‘Henry’ she carried coal until the 1960s when she was resold to ‘Caggy’ Stevens of Oldbury and renamed ‘Susan’. It is now owned by the Black Country Living Museum, where it is based and can be seen dockside in the Lord Ward's Canal Arm at the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley. Diamond is on the National Historic Ships register.
North Star is a derelict wooden horse-drawn icebreaker built in 1868 and was used to clear a way through the ice when the canals were frozen. She is registered with National Historic Ships UK with certificate no 1963 She was built at Ocker Hill by the Birmingham Canal Navigations Company as North Star. She was then sold in 1904 to the Stourbridge Canal Company where she acquired the name Samson. In 1940 she moved to Walsall where she worked until 1962. In 1967 she was converted to a pleasure boat and kept as such until 1987.
Peacock is a British narrowboat. She was built as a flyboat for Fellows Morton & Clayton (FMC) at Saltley, Birmingham in 1915, as fleet number 102. FMC had been using a fleet of steam fly boats since 1889, but in 1912 introduced motor boats such as Peacock into their fleet. 'Fly' boats work day and night non-stop, and with an all-male crew the cabins were more spartan than those of long distance family crewed boats.
The Stour is an all-wooden motor narrow boat powered by a Bolinder 11 kW diesel engine. It was built as a tar tanker in 1937 by Fellows Morton & Clayton at their Uxbridge dockyard for fuel oil carriers Thomas Clayton Ltd of Oldbury.
Bristol Packet Boat Trips is a limited company offering public and charter excursions in Bristol Harbour and on the River Avon. The company has four boats: the river launch Tower Belle, narrowboat Redshank, glass-topped Bagheera and locally built Flower of Bristol. The company also has an interest in Bristol Hydrogen Boats which has commissioned and built a hydrogen powered ferry boat.
Bertha is a steam-powered boat built in 1844 to remove silt from the Port of Bridgwater in Somerset, England. It is the oldest operational steam vessel in Britain, and possibly in the world. It is part of the National Historic Fleet.
British industrial architecture has been created, mainly from 1700 onwards, to house industries of many kinds in Britain, home of the Industrial Revolution in this period. Both the new industrial technologies and industrial architecture soon spread worldwide. As such, the architecture of surviving industrial buildings records part of the history of the modern world.
