Ian Mac

Boat delivery - time equals money. Would have been a lot quicker if three pounds on the Manchester 18 had not been bone dry.

At the council meting last September, before I was voted off, I asked two questions which are relevant here. 1 Are the trust going to close either the Rochdale or the HVNC due to lack of funds, to which the Chair of the Trustees answered "not on my watch" 2 Why do we not make the Marple closure, a campaign by just declaring its closed and not fixing it, as the trust is broke, especially as we know how to win that one, as we have done it before. Its high profile in a marginal parliamentary seat. David Orr, the Chair responded, now is not the time to go down that road, there may become a time when we may have to adopt such an approach but I hope that we do not have to arrive at that point. From this I draw the conclusion that C&RT are not currently in the game of closing canals. This is the direction which the trustees are telling the management to move! This is particularly true of the HVNC and the Rochdale, as both have adjoining local authorities which have made agreements with C&RT about them being open for navigation. The original HVNC funding agreement has now run out, I am not sure what the current position is between the authorities along HVNC & C&RT is. The HCS still exists and it may well be in the mix there too as originally it was the holder of the funding from the Local authorities. That funding may well now come directly to C&RT. The agreement to support the Rochdale canal made by the local authorities is I believe for a much longer period of time 50 years, or so, I think, however I am not sure what the start date for that was, but it is still good currently. The original agreement involved the Waterways Trust and the local authorities. The Waterways Trust was absorbed by C&RT when it too became a charitable trust. As to Lock 1E on he HVNC there is thought to be a leak associated with the lock structure however it is proving very hard to discover where the leak is and where the water is going to. The last theory I heard was that the leak is in the stonework of the fore bay, however that has been in theory sealled but the leak persists. An ongoing mystery. I should also add that the Rochdale water problems are in the main due to poor boating practices. Last week I worked to boats through the Manchester 18 and Slattocks flights, no real problems plenty of water. This week I helped a boat though with an experienced crew. They did Castlefield to Smith Bridge in just less that 12 hours, but the flights were both in a mess. My conclusion is that another boat has been through and not made sure that all paddles and gates were closed. Pounds that I have never know to be dry before were dry, it was all very odd!

The other thing that C&RT have to undertake are the 47? statuary obligations which they inherited from when they were a government body. I am not aware of any other charity which has such legal obligations. Anybody know of any? Would be interesting to know just what the 47 obligations are, I suspect someone on here will have the list.

Here is an image from the J.Greenway collection of NB Yeoford & NB Pictor on the Duckhams oil run. You can see the purpose made tanks inside the boats. I am assuming this is taken somewhere on the Wryly, before Birmingham & Midland had a spat with British Waterways and Waterways took their dredger home.

The other problem with Tin boats was they could not carry the same load. This is all to do with the centre of buoyancy and the centre of Mass, The centre of mass has to be below the centre of buoyancy, otherwise it will roll over to get them in the correct place. I believe they are know as a couple as both forces work together. The closer they are to each other the more unstable the craft is, untill they pass each other and then turn turtle in an attempt to sort the problem out Adder was really unstable when loaded. We have replaced that plank twice now. so 37,58, 89 and then again in 2020 as it would have been silly not to do it. May have lasted another 5 to 10 years. Image shows the new wood laid out ready to have the scarf cut on to it before we steam it into place. The last plank to be replaced on that side.

Clayton specialised in carrying any liquids, when they first started they just had open boats, however following a boat overturning on the Thames government pass a law saying all liquids would be carried in enclosed tanks, and thus the tar boat was born. In the 1920's Clayton got a contract to deliver 200tns a week of Saudi light oil from Shell Stanlow to there facilities in Oldbury. This mean at least 10 boats on the job. Sometimes the oil was collected from Shell Trafford Park rather than Stanlow, not sure why that happened. This was stopped after the war when the Pluto pipeline system was slightly deregulated and the oil could be pump down the pipeline and became available from the Kidderminster pumping station, so it became cheaper to road haul it into Oldbury. Claytons other traffics of which people have written was the delivery of liquids from gas works to tar distilleries. This would bring Clayton boats all around the country. There was a southern fleet of wide beams which dealt with the London Gas works. Another oil traffic not sure who ran this one, was bringing petrol up the Seven from Avonmouth to Worcester. Infamous for one of the boats blowing up the Seven Rail Bridge. One thing these boats would do, is to shoot the weirs when the river was in flood. No need for Locks! Pluto only runs down from Stanlow to Avon Mouth then Southampton Water Not sure if the link to the Isle of White is still used. I do not believe it is bidirectional which some of the other lines are.

The thing about all of this is that it does not actually matter in the grand scheme of things. The result of this survey could easily have been predicted. Those that are living on the water because it enables them to have a roof over there heads do not want any increases in cost. Those that have their boat basically as a caravan parked up for 99% of the time and read the papers and know that its getting very expensive for everything but its their holiday home, don't care as long as it does not get too dear. Those in the middle fall either way depending on personal circumstances. What is the biggest cost rise I have seen? The increase in the cost of insurance makes what NBW are moaning on about seem totally irrelevant. The other major cost increase Fuel! Even Wheaton Aston is really dear now As we attempt to do a good bit of boating that really matters. Comparing to 4 years ago.

No No No 8ft Mr Brindley. The standard mantra when working on a 15hp Bolinder. Which is shoehorned into the engine room. It would also make the boatmans cabin on a wooden motorboat so much more accommodating.

This lock is a known Pinch point to those of us with historic craft. The tail bay is falling in, a common failure with W&B locks, many have been rebuilt over the years because of this failure. Once you know what to look for it is quite easy to spot the rebuilds. It has probably moved to the point where normal boats are now getting stuck. C&RT of course will blame almost anything else rather than there own infrastructure. Talking of W&B pinch points I believe the top lock at Taribiggee is also moving and has become a tighter pinch point. The HNBC have been reporting a problem with this lock since 2016! Locks 3 & 10 are also on the move.

The name is far old than that, it was a NEW royal hunting area created by/for William the Conqueror. As royal land it may well have been used to grow more trees when Henry Viii expanded the fleet. To bring it all back to canals the length of canal going east from Ellesmere is lined with Oaks which were planted to supply the canal Co with timber in the future. Can you image the shouting that harvesting them now would generate.

Your taking the meaning of the word forest incorrectly. It is not Forest as in Snow White, or The Ginger bread house, type of forest ie one full of trees, it is Forest as in an area of land reserved by Royals as a hunting area. In Norman times a forest then meant a hunting preserve. Also used by the De-Lacy family, the highest of the Norman Dukes, Norman Williams top mate, who was sent to the north to sort it out after the conquest. A Dukes hunting area technically including the De-Lacy's should have been called Chases - IE Cannock Chase. The Delacys called theirs forests - Forest of Bowland, Forest of Pendle, Forest of Gisburn, Forest of Trawden, Forest of Rossendale. None of these area's have much tree cover and are mainly high moorland, and have been since sheep were introduced to this country millennium's ago. Some of these are still part of the Duchy of Lancaster. Most have a deer park, a fenced enclosure of about 500 acres where deer could be managed. These give rise to names such as Fence, Park Farm etc.

Who actually now controls the basin, was the lease let when the properties were built?

It is!

Unfortunately, no longer complete. When being maintained recently the main drive shattered. Its construction was interesting. The spindle hidden by the white cover was a forged wrought iron shaft. On to this had been cast a cog. Simple story - When being wound up the Cog shattered, resulted in a nasty head injury to the person winding.

That is a really interesting image. I have not seen any photographs of that type of paddle fitted to a Rochdale gate. The earliest ones I've seen all have what I refer to as MKi paddle gearing, some of this still exists on head ground paddles coming over from Yorkshire, all the paddles below Rochdale are either MKii or Mkiii or the dreaded Northwich standard or even worse Fenner. A variant of Mki gearing was fitted to bottom gates, and can be seen in many early images, although MKii does occasionally show up.