Spring 2025 - Issue 77
The Spring 2025 issue includes the following features. You can purchase this magazine from our online Shop.
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Front Cover: Richard Crump of Bewdley was a farmer, timber dealer and estate agent for a local landowner also owned several boats including Ladas, registered in August 1894 with Thomas Crump as captain. Ladas main route was on the Staffs & Worcs Canal between Bewdley and the Potteries, where the timber was used for making pottery crates. Ladas is shown as a deep-draughted Severn longboat, typical of craft owned at Bewdley with livery representative of boats photographed at Bewdley with colours interpreted from black-and-white.
Historical Profiles
Going Underground
Andy Tidy explores boats built specifically for subterranean waterways
View an excerpt.
Historical Profiles
Staffs & Worcs Traffics
Chris M. Jones looks at several aspects of canal carrying on the Staffs & Worcs Canal
View an excerpt.
A Broader Outlook
Power to the People
With Britain’s last coal-fired power station closing last autumn, Andy Tidy looks back at the canals’ connections with the UK’s power industry
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Historical Profiles
Preston’s Lost Canal Basin
Daniel Crowther follows the rise and fall of the Lancaster Canal’s lost transhipment basin
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A Broader Outlook
Barging on the Aire & Calder
Chris M. Jones explores photos from the Jack Parkinson collection showing barges at work in Goole docks on the Aire & Calder Canal taken on a viist in September 1966 when the canal was still full of commercial activity.
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Picturing the Past
Traffic at Market Drayton
Chris M. Jones looks at four images that illustrate traffic around this small Shropshire town
This is our free-access sample article from the Spring 2025 NarrowBoat
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From the Archives
Who was William Mansell?
Using various family history resources, Joseph Boughey attempts to uncover the details of a boatman encountered on the Trench Inclined Plane in the late 19th century
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Canals That Never Were
Penrhyn Canal
Richard Dean describes an interesting Welsh proposal
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Picturing the Past
Bluetop Boats
We look at photos showing an unusual class of narrowboat built for British Transport Waterways in the 1950s and ’60s
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Picturing the Past
Coal for the Sugar Works
Chris M. Jones investigates an image showing coal traffic passing through Maghull
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