Jump to content

Brookline Narrowboats


cuthound

Featured Posts

This afternoon, three Brookline Narrowboats, but with the vinyl company name removed have passed my house, all heading south. Never seen any pass here before.

 

A quick Google shows the company was based at Dunhampstead but is now permanently closed, so presumably it has gone into liquidation and the administers have sold off the ex-hire fleet with the boats being collected by their new owners on the same day?

Edited by cuthound
To remove a letter masquerading as a space
Link to comment
Share on other sites

They closed after last year’s hire season. Going south on the Coventry in convey suggests they might be off to a new base on the Ashby or perhaps Coventry itself. Any further and they’d have gone via Kingswood and Braunston. I’ll be in that area shortly. I’ll keep an eye out.

 

JP

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, The Dreamer said:

We had a couple stop of at Diglis earlier in the season.  The yard is still open at Dunhampsted, just don’t appear to be hiring anymore.

Were they on hire? Unlikely if they were actually in the marina. I was told they had closed pretty early on this year and have seen none of their boats in Droitwich at all this year. It was a routine first night stop for weekend hirers on the Droitwich Ring.

 

JP

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

Were they on hire?

Nah, they were moored up on the offside of the outer basin, for just a couple of days.  Thinking about it, I wonder if they ended up in Pinder’s dry dock.  Haven’t had a peer in there recently...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

The yard is now used by Trinity boatbuilders who featured in some discussion on here recently.

 

JP

That looked like the right hand side as we passed not the yard, the hire boats were to the left with what looked like the hire base offices behind them

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

That looked like the right hand side as we passed not the yard, the hire boats were to the left with what looked like the hire base offices behind them

Various companies have operated on the site in addition to the hire operation but I believe it was all controlled by Brookline.

 

JP

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember wondering what was going on there a good while back the last time I went through Dunhampstead. This would have been last winter, probably February at a guess.  Couldn't put my finger on what it was that was going on, but it was suddenly very different from our many and frequent previous passings by.  So, have Brookline moved or sunk?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Sea Dog said:

I remember wondering what was going on there a good while back the last time I went through Dunhampstead. This would have been last winter, probably February at a guess.  Couldn't put my finger on what it was that was going on, but it was suddenly very different from our many and frequent previous passings by.  So, have Brookline moved or sunk?

Ceased trading. There’s a lot of competition on the Worcs & Bham plus more competition on the Stourport and Avon rings. They were a smaller and less visible player right in the midst of the HQs of two of the three big nationwide hire companies.

 

JP

 

ETA - forgot who I was responding to. You know all the last bit!

Edited by Captain Pegg
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

Ceased trading.

Oh dear :( - thanks for the info though, JP. 

 

Brookline were always pretty tidy looking boats and I find it sad that we seem to move  inexorably towards fewer and fewer independent companies in favour of ever growing, multi-based big boys.  I suppose it's good if it's because the best are doing well and the dodgy yards are failing, but I'm not so sure it is. What do the rest of us think?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Oh dear :( - thanks for the info though, JP. 

 

Brookline were always pretty tidy looking boats and I find it sad that we seem to move  inexorably towards fewer and fewer independent companies in favour of ever growing, multi-based big boys.  I suppose it's good if it's because the best are doing well and the dodgy yards are failing, but I'm not so sure it is. What do the rest of us think?

 

I think that the "multi-based big boys" started as small independents, did their job well, gained a good reputation and were thus able to expand. Napton Narrowboats would be a case in point: besides their bases at Napton and on the Canal du Midi I believe they now have one up North too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Athy said:

I think that the "multi-based big boys" started as small independents, did their job well, gained a good reputation and were thus able to expand. Napton Narrowboats would be a case in point: besides their bases at Napton and on the Canal du Midi I believe they now have one up North too.

 

Depends whether you call Autherley Junction at the southern end of the Shroppie as being up north. ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

Depends whether you call Autherley Junction at the southern end of the Shroppie as being up north. ?

I couldn't remember where it was, thanks for reminding me. It is some distance further North than Napton, anyway.

Edited by Athy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Oh dear :( - thanks for the info though, JP. 

 

Brookline were always pretty tidy looking boats and I find it sad that we seem to move  inexorably towards fewer and fewer independent companies in favour of ever growing, multi-based big boys.  I suppose it's good if it's because the best are doing well and the dodgy yards are failing, but I'm not so sure it is. What do the rest of us think?

 

 

17 minutes ago, Athy said:

I think that the "multi-based big boys" started as small independents, did their job well, gained a good reputation and were thus able to expand. Napton Narrowboats would be a case in point: besides their bases at Napton and on the Canal du Midi I believe they now have one up North too.

As @cuthound suggests Napton only have the Napton and Autherley bases. The big players are ABC, Black Prince and Anglo-Welsh. Brookline were competing against all three on the W&B and it’s difficult to see that they were offering anything particularly different.

 

I honestly don’t see that the big companies are aggressive, rather it seems they have scaled themselves so they can promote themselves independently. Brookline operated with Hoseasons as an agent. That’s probably a bit old school for a hire base. The one base independents still left are often quite big, such as Wyvern and Union Canal Cruisers; perhaps also Rose Narrowboats but I’m not sure their fleet is on the same scale however they appear to have other facets to the business as well as hire. Kate Boats are possibly similar. What some of these bring to the market that Brookline didn’t is characterful boats. It will be a shame when all hire boats are the box types with modern fit outs that form the entire fleets of the big three brands but I suspect the provenance of the boat and the character of the fit out isn’t a big factor for most hirers.

 

Although ABC have various other brands in the group it seems that some bases - notably the Viking ones - are being turned over to an ABC fleet.

 

JP

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

 

As @cuthound suggests Napton only have the Napton and Autherley bases.

 

JP

No, they have one on the Canal du Midi - run as "Minervois Cruisers" but it's the same company.I thought that I had mentioned that one. We've hired from it, I think it's at Le Somail but I may be mistaken. The Autherley base is, as far as I know, a more recent addition. They are therefore, as I said, an independent company which is expanding.

Edited by Athy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Athy said:

No, they have one on the Canal du Midi - run as "Minervois Cruisers" but it's the same company.I thought that I had mentioned that one. We've hired from it, I think it's at Le Somail but I may be mistaken. The Autherley base is, as far as I know, a more recent addition. They are therefore, as I said, an independent company which is expanding.

Yes, you mentioned it. You’re just too clever for me.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

57 minutes ago, Athy said:

I think that the "multi-based big boys" started as small independents, did their job well, gained a good reputation and were thus able to expand. Napton Narrowboats would be a case in point: besides their bases at Napton and on the Canal du Midi I believe they now have one up North too.

When we first moored at Alvechurch they were a small operation with the single location operating out of a small caravan and little more than a shed. In those days they only had a small number of hire boats but gradually expanded the operation and then started take over other locations until they became the nationwide ABC boats that are now in most locations and seem to feature in almost everything to do with canals.

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Captain Pegg said:

the Viking ones - are being turned over to an ABC fleet.

Worcester marina will have one yellow boat left after next week, when Horik leaves their fleet, and I doubt that the other two old Viking bases are any different...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, The Dreamer said:

Worcester marina will have one yellow boat left after next week, when Horik leaves their fleet, and I doubt that the other two old Viking bases are any different...

Of course Worcester is ABC’s HQ so it seems natural, although Rugby seems to be similar in that ABC branded boats operate out of there in seemingly increasing numbers. Not so sure about Gailey because that’s an arm of JD boat builders and seemed a bit more independent when I hired from there a few years back.

 

The yellow boats were distinctive and I’ve hired a few. They were a bit lower spec than the Alvechurch boats. They won’t be missed for their aesthetics mind.

 

JP

Edited by Captain Pegg
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.