Last Days of Fly-boating

Picturing the Past: NarrowBoat, Winter 2017

Our study of traffic at Brentford reveals details of John Landon & Co’s express carrying service between Aylesbury and London.

This view from Brentford Bridge shows the navigable River Brent below Grand Junction Lock No 100, which was rebuilt into the double gauging lock shown here following flood damage in the 19th century. The large building on the right is Pennington’s Clothing Factory, well known to the boaters as a supplier of working clothes, with the first letters of the company name just visible on the gable wall. The portable advert covering it reads ‘Old Bushmills Whisky’, promoting an Irish distillery based in County Antrim. On the extreme left is the Brentford depot of Fellows, Morton & Clayton Ltd, the largest carrier on the Grand Junction. The round corrugated roof behind the company’s sign covers a wet dock.Barges and boats Barge traffic was commonplace on the lower Grand Junction and this image shows a typical array of wooden river craft. Some barges transhipped their cargoes into narrow or wide boats on the River Brent, or in the basin above the locks known as Th…