Winter 2025 - Issue 80

You can purchase this magazine from our online Shop.

You can read the articles in this and all other NarrowBoat issues online by becoming a NarrowBoat subscriber.

Current NarrowBoat subscribers can fully search and read the digital editions of ALL issues of NarrowBoat online. Including those that are no longer available in print. Simply log in

Cover Image

Subscribe to NarrowBoat magazine

Front Cover: A British Waterways motor-and-butty pair cut through the thin ice that has refrozen overnight, after being broken by several pairs heading south the previous day. Both vessels are large Woolwich former Grand Union Canal Carrying Co craft that British Waterways inherited after nationalisation.

The Winter 2025 issue includes the following features.

A Place in History

Tales from Harecastle Tunnel

Andy Tidy heads deep beneath Harecastle Hill to reveal a story of bold engineering and electric ingenuity

This is our free-access sample article from the Winter 2025 NarrowBoat

You can view an excerpt here.

Historical Profiles

The Leicester Navigation at Mountsorrel

Chris M. Jones looks into the history of industry and canal traffic at Mountsorrel

You can view an excerpt here.

Picturing the Past

Harker’s barges on the Aire & Calder

Maik Brown explores images of the Knottingley carrier’s craft at work in the 1960s  

You can view an excerpt here.

From the Archives

A late proposal for the Leeds & Liverpool

Joseph Boughey examines archives revealing a last bid to give the L&L a new freight role

You can view an excerpt here.

A Broader Outlook

River Nene at Wisbech

Chris M. Jones looks at images showing the port of Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, where fen lighters carried import and export cargoes to and from wharves and warehouses served by seagoing vessels

You can view an excerpt here.

Historical Canal Maps

Penetrating Paddington

Richard Dean highlights the difficulty of urban canal-building

You can view an excerpt here.

Picturing the Past

Images of the Erewash

Chris M. Jones explores photos showing working boats on the Erewash Canal

You can view an excerpt here.

A Broader Outlook

Barging through Sharpness

Chris M. Jones looks at photos from the Jack Parkinson collection showing commercial traffic working through Sharpness Lock on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal

You can view an excerpt here.

Picturing the Past

Revisiting the Old Thames Waterfront

Chris M. Jones explores images showing the waterfront of the tidal Thames in and around London 

You can view an excerpt here.