Pluto

On the L&LC, the last horse boat was Ainscough's Parbold which finished circa 1960.

Murillo was one of Parkes coal boats, a wooden 72 footer. When Parkes fleet was sold to BW circa 1962, she was transferred to the maintenance fleet and was the last wooden L&LC motor boat in BW service, being broken up circa 1973 IIRC. The other wooden boat at the time was the Rufford, a square transom dumb maintenance boat about 50 feet long by ten feet wide. Both worked in the Burscough area at the start of the 1970s. The Baybutts were a well-known local boating family, with Burscough being the centre for boatmen in the area.

Firstly, the canal is the Leeds and Liverpool, not the Leeds Liverpool. Please use the correct terminology in future posts. Sailing boats certainly did use the L&LC up till the 1840s, when the Stanley Dock branch was built. Coal for ships in Liverpool Docks was taken onto the Bridgewater Canal, then down Runcorn Locks, and then sailed down to Liverpool, ensuring that it only needed to be transhipped once, directly into waiting ships. In Yorkshire, goods were advertised as being delivered to Hull 'in one bottom', meaning that transhipment did not take place, and again sailing boats must have been used. However, they would have had folding or removable masts. I suspect that the masts were removed at Runcorn or Goole/Knottingley/Leeds respectively. There was a boat yard at Burscough, on the off side of the canal between Top Locks and Glovers Bridge. The yard was run by the Tyrer family, and I do wonder if they were part of Tyrer and Glovers, who were one of the two large general cargo carriers prior to 1848, when they were taken over by the canal company following railway competition. On the 1802 plans of the canal, no boat yard is shown here, but there was the drydock at Top Locks, where boats may have been built. Coastal sailing vessels from West Lancashire were usually built in the Tarleton area, and there were several yards below the present lock. If the Diamond was built at Burscough, it would have had to be small enough for the Rufford Branch locks, quite possible with a registered tonnage of 25T. Masts would then have been put in at Tarleton. As a two masted schooner, it would probably have been better known as a jigger flat, the jigger being the smaller mast at the stern. Back entries in Liverpool were once known as jiggers, with cats called jigger rabbits. One other possibility is that the Diamond was owned by a group of Burscough area residents, as there is a long history of sailing boat ownership in the area.

The old hospital used to overlook the canal, so would have been more convenient for you. I had a hip replaced there about fifteen years ago and was able to look down on the bottom lock from the ward. The hospital was founded in the mid-nineteenth century and was supported by donations, including those from the L&LC Co. On one occasion, a boatman on a steam boat at Greenberfield was scalded by a boiler tube failure and had to be rushed to Blackburn by boat - where he died.

Nidd and Comet at Skipton, probably around 1950. Sorry, but I have no more recent photos, though remember her at New Lane in the 1970s. Photography was too expensive then to record everything.

Actually, it was Germans and Poles who asked what the difference was; the French are less likely to worry what words mean in other languages.

In my travels around Europe, I have often been asked 'What is the difference between a canal and a channel'. It is a question I have never been able to answer fully as some canals are man made, as are some channels. Conversely, they can also be natural. You do have canals in your body, while some channels are dredged. The problem with English is that you can say one thing and it has three meanings, hence it is the language of politics.

You are talking about today's names. Historically, some waterways were called navigations, some canal navigations, and some canals, and it did not matter whether they were what you are calling river navigations or canals above. The official name of many navigations/canals often changed over time, with the 'Company of Proprietors of the Canal Navigation from Leeds to Liverpool and the Undertakers of the Douglas Navigation' becoming the 'Leeds & Liverpool Canal' in 1891 after the final shares in the Douglas Navigation had been purchased. The name 'Leeds & Liverpool Canal Company' had been registered earlier, in 1854.

To some extent, the term 'canal' came later. Many Acts for what are now called canals authorised the construction of a waterway by 'The Proprietors of the Navigation from A to B', or similar, the phrase 'The A & B Canal' not being used until later.

Three photos of Anna under construction and being launched.

I was working with him on Lapwing at the time. He told me moved on to Mendip from Clent IIRC, in the early 1950s. Perhaps this was when the engine was changed. When I was living on Pluto, I moored next to Charlie, and used to take him out shopping in the 1934 Riley 9 I had built, an open two-seater with no windscreen. In a later, more modern, vehicle, I took him to Goole. We arrived at Ocean Lock just as a ship was entering the docks and stood and watched the lock operating. At the end, Charlie said to me - It's a bit faster than the Shroppie! For the following few days back at Preston Brook he would recall the trip, telling me all the things he had seen that you would need to know if you went boating on the A&CN and C&HN, things which I had not noticed. It made me realise that there is a big difference between intelligence and education. Charlie may not have had the latter, but he certainly had the former.

Ambush at Burscough least weekend. Viktoria is at Crooke, where Ambush and Kennet will be this weekend, the latter open to the public.

You have to remember that the G&SC was the world's largest canal when built and it was designed for sea-going vessels, rather than canal boats, hence the Mariners Chapel, rather than Boatmen's Mission.

It is a Mariners Chapel, not one specifically for canal workers, as a Boatmen's Mission would have been. There was a family called Bishop who worked on the L&LC.

I think the site is a little to the north. The sketch map refers to a bridge made from Brunel-type bridge rail and not a railway bridge. Check the road names in the deposited plans to give a better location.

Perhaps this should be the Cathedral of the Canals, as it is the last Canal Boatmen's Mission still in use as a place of worship. It is in New Lane, Burscough.

It is still waiting for us on Severn. We should meet at Leigh in a couple of weeks, but the transfer won't take place then as Kennet is going on dock. We will strip out the hold as we need to check the bilge plating inside, which has not been done properly since Kennet was restored for BW by Roger Lorenz in 1985. We should find out if we have HLF money this week.

The structure, as illustrated, would not be useable for navigation. To make a more detailed assessment, it would be necessary to get the tidal levels, to compare high tide levels with the level of the river bed upstream, and thus the cill of any lock-type structure. The slope of the river bed upstream would also be needed, to see what effect holding back the fresh water would have. On fenland areas, holding back water would give quite lengthy navigable sections, but where the land slopes, there would be a need for further weirs to maintain navigable depth. The other factor is where would goods be carried to and from. The obvious place would be Dartington Hall, though that is where local knowledge would be useful to identify other possibilities. The local archaeologist probably has it right, in proposing checking the site for any remains during the construction of the generating station.

Step dancing, that's clog dancing on the spot, was a tradition on the L&LC as it was one way to keep warm in the winter whilst steering. Emma Vickers and Bill Gibbons gave demonstrations in the 1980s, with Bill having been filmed on several occasions. A video is available from the English Folk And Dance Society - I think they're called. Clog fighting for locks was also a tradition, particularly at Wigan, but one that hasn't been revived yet.

I would not expect to find a flash lock at the head of a tidal river, as a conventional lock gate would be all that was required. Flash locks were used where the river below the lock was shallow, the flash of water let down by the flash lock allowing boats to sail over the shallows. On a tidal river, this would not be necessary as you would only have to wait for the tide to cross any shallow sections. With a simple lock gate, the bed of the river below would not need to be sloped and it is much more likely to have been level. The whole structure, from the photos, is typical of a water mill installation.

Alan Holden wanted a boat which looked like a L&LC short boat, but which could travel anywhere - even with the single cylinder engine, he has been up and down several tidal rivers. 'Anna' is Alan's idea of how a L&LC tug could have been built. I am surprised that no one else has had a similar boat built. With the prop right at the back, no weed hatch is needed and it is easy to get to anything around the prop. At the front, the rounded bow can be used to the full, with none of the wasted space usual on narrow boat bows. The whole design provides something which maximises space for a given length, while at the same time having a traditional shape.

Burscough yesterday, 24 June:

The short boat Ribble, owned by the Lawson family, one of the many local boating families, at Burscough on Friday. Kennet and Ambush were also there.

On both the 1802 and the 1827 survey of the land the L&LC owned, there is a strip on the offside of the canal throughout the Maghull area, with extended access around some of the bridges where there were wharfs. This section of the canal is on a small embankment, so the strip of land was there to ensure that the canal company was responsible for maintaining the slopes. As there have been a number of bad leakages here, perhaps BW should let those putting up barriers know that that will make them responsible for any leakage or damage to other property from leaks, as well as any injury to those trying to operate the bridges.