Regent's Canal Painting Puzzle

Reader's Letters & Queries: NarrowBoat, Spring 2012

Entitled Boating Scene on the Regent’s Canal with Narrow Boats and a Lighter this delightful painting is by Charles William Wyllie (1853–1923) and is part of the collection of the Gloucester Waterways Museum, having been professionally photographed by the Public Catalogue Foundation for its ‘Oil Paintings in Public Ownership’ series (Winter 2011 NB). With a title like that, the initial plan was to include it in the Regent’s Canal profile in this issue, but the location has not been positively identified, and there is some doubt that the wide-span bridge and ‘East Anglian’ style buildings were actually on the canal. The only suggested possible location we have received is on Limehouse Cut above Thames Lock (when the Cut was not linked to Regent’s Canal Dock). If this were the location, the bridge in the background of the painting would be Britannia Bridge carrying Commercial Road. Possibly when the Thames was in flood, the Cut could also …