Features

BOATING holidays agency Waterways Holidays has answered the questions it is most often asked in a blog post titled Newbie’s Guide to Boating. The company introduced more than 16,000 ‘newbies’ to boating holidays in 2017 and credits TV programmes like Great Canal Journeys and Celebrity Carry On Barging for bringing holidays afloat to a new…

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VISITORS and Londoners alike can once again charter their own electric boat without the need for a licence or captain. GoBoat has been taking advance bookings for its popular hire boats and slots are available from 10am until dusk; weekends only in March then seven days a week from April. The favoured route is to…

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Towpath astronomer Brian Jones points out some of the stars which make up the lion that takes pride of place in the spring night sky. THE constellation of Leo can be seen high up in the southern sky during March evenings and is really unmistakable, being one of the few groups actually resembling the object…

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Phil Pickin returns to see a narrowboat which first caught his eye on a previous visit. SOME time ago I visited Perrydale Narrowboats at their base at Ashwood Marina to see their newest creation, Lady Grey. It was during that visit that Dave Perry enthusiastically showed me round what was, at the time, a partly…

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Lifeboatman John Chapman is one of the crew who patrol the busy tidal River Thames from Teddington. Elizabeth Rogers finds out more. THIS year marks the 16th anniversary of the forming of the Thames Lifeboat Rescue Stations, to add to those which have been in operation in coastal areas by the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat…

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By Janet Richardson ONE of the regular features of the London Boat Show is the presentation of The Yacht Harbour Association’s prestigious Marina of the Year Awards. Voted for by berth holders, they recognise the best of TYHA’s Gold Anchor accredited marinas, not only on the UK’s inland waterways but from all around the world.…

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By Janet Richardson STRATEGICALLY important over the centuries, the medieval market town of Tewkesbury is situated at the confluence of the rivers Avon and Severn. Its position on a flood plain – both rivers overflowed their banks in 2007 leaving the Abbey surrounded by water – has curtailed expansion and time is said to have…

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Mark Tizard, vice-chairman of the National Association of Boat Owners (NABO), comments on some more topical issues. NABO’s recent open letter to the All Party Parliamentary Working Group for Waterways objecting to the transfer of Environment Agency navigations to the Canal & River Trust (CRT) was partly based on the belief that at the moment…

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UK STREET artist Lucy McLauchlan is the newest addition to The Ring – a major arts programme and cultural first for Worcestershire that will celebrate the rebirth of the region’s canals and rivers 
during 2018. The project, run by the Canal & River Trust, will see a series of new art commissions created by local…

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Towpath astronomer Brian Jones pinpoints one of the oldest star groups. VISIBLE high in the southern sky during mid-evenings in February, the constellation of Gemini is one of the oldest star groups in the heavens and as long ago as the second millennium BC, Babylonian astronomers were depicting this group in their star maps. Greek…

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A COMMUNITY ‘linear larder’ garden along the banks of the Rochdale Canal was a runner-up in a new BBC One daytime TV series, Let’s Get a Good Thing Going, broadcast on Friday, December 22. Incredible Edible Todmorden was one of four community groups bidding for funds in an episode based around Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire.…

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By Harry Arnold Pictures: Waterway Images AFTER some months of negotiations Joule’s Brewery has acquired the key Crown Wharf site on the Trent & Mersey Canal in the centre of Stone from the Canal & River Trust (CRT). Lying semi-derelict and undeveloped for several years, it is adjacent to the historic premises of the well-known…

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Cicely Oliver discovers that there’s more to farming than crops in the fields. Pictures: Iain Withers IN 2015 Iain Withers bought four acres of farmland with a plan in mind: an eco-friendly market garden business delivering produce by boat along 
the canal. And Scotland’s first community-owned moorings on the stretch of the Union Canal abutting…

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A FORMER canal warehouse from pre-Victorian times has sailed into a new life as a popular museum. The Ashton Canal Warehouse was built in the early 1830s at the junction of three canals in Ashton-under-Lyne – the Huddersfield Narrow, the Peak Forest Canal and the Ashton Canal. Wooden floors in the three-storey building are supported…

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