A September Day at Tusses Bridge Dock

Time and Place: NarrowBoat, Summer 2025

Christopher M Jones

Chris M. Jones reveals the histories of three boats and their owners seen at Tusses Bridge boatyard on the Oxford Canal

At the time this image was taken in September 1907, there were two Sephton-run boatyards in the Foleshill parish of Coventry: F.W. & A. Sephton of Sutton Stop, founded in November 1893, and Sephton Brothers of Tusses Bridge. The latter was created by four brothers after the death of their father John Sephton in November 1882. He had been a boat-builder at Foleshill for at least 48 years and was based at Tusses Bridge by 1863. Dorothy On the far-left bank is the boat Dorothy owned by William Boon & Sons of Nuneaton. The Boon family was in business with boat-builder and road contractor William Camwell, trading as Camwell & Boon, in the 1850s. William Boon started on his own in March 1861 as a quarry owner at Marston Quarries, Nuneaton, and set himself up as a road paviour, sewer and road contractor. By 1880 he had built up a small fleet of boats, then in 1884 he bought Windmill Hill Granite Quarries alongside the Coventry Canal at Nuneaton, the quarry for which he was mos…