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  • Top destinations for 2023

    Top destinations for 2023

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    FROM rural retreats to vibrant city centres, narrowboat holidaymakers can use their boat as a floating holiday home to explore Britain’s network of inland waterways. There’s a great choice of hundreds of waterside destinations and canalside pubs to stop off at along the way.  Here are Drifters’ waterways holidays’ top canal boat holidays for 2023:…

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  • Marine services across the Midlands

    Marine services across the Midlands

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    IF YOU are looking for quality workmanship and great customer service at a reasonable price then look no further than HiQ Marine Services, writes director and engineer Jamie Wilde. Having experienced some of the workmanship carried out for boat owners relying on the services of an ‘expert’, we decided to create HiQ Marine Services to…

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  • Winter works underway to protect historic Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal

    Winter works underway to protect historic Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal

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    Glandŵr Cymru, the Canal & River Trust in Wales, has started a four-month programme of improvements to protect and preserve the picturesque Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal. The works on the 35-mile canal, which has a history dating back over 220 years, will be completed in March and will see the Trust’s team of staff and…

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  • Canalway Cavalcade prepares for 40th anniversary

    Canalway Cavalcade prepares for 40th anniversary

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    THE Inland Waterways Association’s Canalway Cavalcade will celebrate its 40th anniversary at Little Venice during the Early May Bank Holiday weekend from April 29-May 1, 2023. This legendary event has been bringing communities together since 1983 and will once again be transforming the heart of the London canal network, with more than 100 colourfully dressed…

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  • The Roundhouse Birmingham

    The Roundhouse Birmingham

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    Nicola Lisle discovers a new visitor centre in Birmingham in the latest in her museum series. ONE of Birmingham’s newest visitor attractions, having opened in July 2021, the Roundhouse in Birmingham is a lovely canalside gem in the heart of the city’s Ladywood district. The horseshoe-shaped building dates back to 1874 and was at the…

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  • Donation to steam narrowboat President honours renowned boatbuilder

    Donation to steam narrowboat President honours renowned boatbuilder

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    IWA Lichfield Branch has donated £2000 in memory of Malcolm Braine, founding member of Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal Society. The donation to the Black Country Living Museum will support the current restoration work and design and installation of a new boiler for President – one of the world’s few surviving boats of its kind and…

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  • Raising a family on the cut!

    Raising a family on the cut!

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    Alice Griffin meets the Burr family: IT WAS on an early morning back in 2011 while working a narrowboat down the Oxford Summit towards Napton as part of a family holiday that Tim and Julie Burr decided they had to make the canals their home. Julie told me: “Tim’s parents regularly holidayed on the canals…

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  • Double win for Finsley Gate Wharf scheme

    Double win for Finsley Gate Wharf scheme

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    NEW craft apprentices are being trained in rare heritage skills by the Canal & River Trust in a double win at Burnley’s Finsley Gate Wharf development. Located on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, the 220-year-old former boatyard and canal office have recently been renovated and transformed into a successful restaurant and cafe bar, function room,…

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  • Sculptor’s great canal journeys

    Sculptor’s great canal journeys

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    Words and photos: Tim Coghlan Actors and boaters Tim and Pru are not the only ones to make Great Canal Journeys. And whereas those engaging octogenarians have now retired from the fray, Sculptor – the octogenarian historic narrowboat owned and operated by the Canal Museum at Stoke Bruerne – is once again out and about,…

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  • New CEO for the Inland Waterways Association

    New CEO for the Inland Waterways Association

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    Dave Pearce will join IWA as CEO from 3rd January 2023. Dave will be working 17 hours a week for the association, and his appointment effectively completes the work of Jonathan Smith as Interim CEO at IWA. Dave has worked in the charity world for over twenty years as a Chief Executive (older people, working…

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  • New land acquired for canal restoration

    New land acquired for canal restoration

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    A POPULAR stretch of restored canal between Chippenham and Lacock could be extended thanks to a new deal. The Wilts & Berks Canal Trust has already rebuilt more than a kilometre of the former waterway from Pewsham Locks to Double Bridge. It has now signed a lease with Wiltshire Council for an additional 500m stretch…

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  • IWA award prize money used to fund Buckingham Canal Society mosaic

    IWA award prize money used to fund Buckingham Canal Society mosaic

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    IN OCTOBER 2022, around 50 people attended the unveiling of a kingfisher mosaic on the restored bridge over the Buckingham Canal at Cosgrove. The mosaic was created by local artist Melanie Watts and funded by the Christopher Power Prize money awarded by IWA to Athina Beckett in 2020. The Christopher Power Prize is awarded to…

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  • New year brings fresh ideas and opportunities

    New year brings fresh ideas and opportunities

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    FOR many of us, the new year will see us set ourselves a series of resolutions that we don’t always keep up. This year set yourself one that you will enjoy continuing with, if you find the right setting, right people and right times for yourself. Let IWA help you find these and help you…

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  • Funding secured for next stage of Lichfield Canal restoration

    Funding secured for next stage of Lichfield Canal restoration

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    THE Lichfield Canal will move a step closer to restoration with funding of £116,200 secured for work at the Darnford Moors section of the canal. Lichfield and Hatherton Canals Restoration Trust (LHCRT) will use the money to create an ecology park. The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is providing £41,200 of the grant, with match…

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