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Art of the Waterways:
Roses Revival - Tony Lewry looks back to explore the origins of today’s canal painting
Famous Fleets:
Thomas Clayton Ltd - Alan Faulkner commemorates exactly 40 years since one of the canal’s best known companies ceased carrying by water
Historical Profiles:
Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal - Ian Langford on the Staffs & Worcs Canal - one of our earliest and most complete original narrow canals
Canals That Never Were:
Watford & St Albans - Richard Dean looks at waterway projects that were left on the drawing board
Traditional Techniques:
Spoon Dredging - Tom Foxon looks at a primitive method of dredging that lasted into the 1950s
Tracing Family History:
Consulting Certificates: Tracing birth, death, marriage certificates - Lorna York looks at documents that help you track down your boating ancestors
Picturing the Past:
Runcorn - Picturing the Past Euan Corrie looks at the Manchester Ship Canal
A Broader Outlook:
Boats, Barges & Trows: On Upper Severn - Barrie Trinder on the vessels of the Upper Severn Navigation
As a long-time enthusiast of the narrowboat painting tradition, and the author of some books and articles on the subject, I am occasionally asked to try to identify the painter of a particular piece of work. It is always a compliment and a pleasurable duty to try, and it has offered me access to a number of interesting pieces that I would not have otherwise seen. Unfortunately, of course, the more historical the piece the more difficult is the attribution. By the time we are back in the 1930s I am floundering with a number of recognisable styles but very few names to connect them to.
Bearing in mind that in the first 60 years of the twentieth century narrowboat traffic declined from a lot to very little, it is particularly frustrating to have the exact reverse in terms of hard information. There is plenty of documentation from the last days of regular carrying, but only a relatively tiny amount from the really busy time before the First World War. The amount from the early nineteenth …
