Maid Line Cruisers base at Brinklow, 1961

[John Brightley]

I have just acquired a copy of the Maid Line Cruisers brochure for 1961, which was the first full year that they operated from the base at Brinklow. The brochure includes this plan and description of the boatyard, which I found interesting and you may do as well.

[davidwheeler]

Mr Brightley I am an infrequent contributor to this site, and foreign at that. I don't know the accepted practices and if what I am going to do is bad form, then I am sorry and will try not to do it again. I will keep this short,  but I am going to invade your site to mention Maid Marilyn, one of my absolute favourite boats. Hired not from Brinklow but Thames Ditton. The purpose, to get to the Wey to try to find some Stevens barges. So little in common with your title. The thing about these Maid boats was their build. They were superbly built wooden boats. Everything about them inside spoke of quality boat building. It was a real joy to be inside them. They were hire boats and they had real class. One could spend hours just admiring how they were put together by craftsmen. Not only that but they handled beautifully. One could park them like a well-behaved car. So this is my opportunity to praise Maid Marilyn of Maidboats. 

And another thing, even more off the mark. I was too late to see the Stevens barges at work - I think they stopped in 1969. But in 1973 there was at least a couple of them still on the Wey Navigation, as well as a Basingstoke barge. But what I really liked, and had a good ramble over, was the work flat 'Fly". I don't know if this still exists, but if not this is my opportunity to praise that boat as well. Completely different from Maid Marilyn, but each very well built for its purpose.  The photo of Fly I have taken from Mr McKnight's Source Book of 1974 and I hope he won't mind. It is a great little book.

[John Brightley]

Hi David. There's no need to apologise. Thank you for sharing your interesting story with us. Here are the details of 'Maid Marilyn' from the 1961 brochure. 

[Mike Coombes]

6 hours ago, davidwheeler said:

Mr Brightley I am an infrequent contributor to this site, and foreign at that. I don't know the accepted practices and if what I am going to do is bad form, then I am sorry and will try not to do it again. I will keep this short,  but I am going to invade your site to mention Maid Marilyn, one of my absolute favourite boats. Hired not from Brinklow but Thames Ditton. The purpose, to get to the Wey to try to find some Stevens barges. So little in common with your title. The thing about these Maid boats was their build. They were superbly built wooden boats. Everything about them inside spoke of quality boat building. It was a real joy to be inside them. They were hire boats and they had real class. One could spend hours just admiring how they were put together by craftsmen. Not only that but they handled beautifully. One could park them like a well-behaved car. So this is my opportunity to praise Maid Marilyn of Maidboats. 

And another thing, even more off the mark. I was too late to see the Stevens barges at work - I think they stopped in 1969. But in 1973 there was at least a couple of them still on the Wey Navigation, as well as a Basingstoke barge. But what I really liked, and had a good ramble over, was the work flat 'Fly". I don't know if this still exists, but if not this is my opportunity to praise that boat as well. Completely different from Maid Marilyn, but each very well built for its purpose.  The photo of Fly I have taken from Mr McKnight's Source Book of 1974 and I hope he won't mind. It is a great little book.

 

I often watched the 'Maids' coming and going from Thames Ditton while fishing on the river. The Best Man at my wedding was the Thames Ditton Baker, the younger son of the Furnish family.

 

They were very nice vessels and always seemed to have happy hirers on them.

[Tony Brooks]

Let's not forget their Wallingford base.

 

They had some concrete hulled boats as well. When customers knocked the transom corners off against hard banks, the fitters came out with a bucket of sand and cement and repaired it up river. We rather ragged them about that, as a favourite damage spot was the long wall at Maidenhead, just above our base.

[magpie patrick]

Lovin it! Thanks @John Brightley for the thread, and @davidwheeler for the words and images that followed. The wooden work boat you show is a joy to behold, there is something very pleasing to the eye about it's basic lines suited to the job it was built for.

 

One of the things that intrigues me is the way the leisure industry for so long pursued the river cruiser as the model for canal boating, much more elegant but much less practical than the sawn off narrowboats that Tingay, Canal Cruising etc offered. Does any hire company today offer a wheel steered cabin cruiser on the canals? Far more common are narrow boats on rivers!

[John Brightley]

10 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

Lovin it! Thanks @John Brightley for the thread, and @davidwheeler for the words and images that followed. The wooden work boat you show is a joy to behold, there is something very pleasing to the eye about it's basic lines suited to the job it was built for.

 

One of the things that intrigues me is the way the leisure industry for so long pursued the river cruiser as the model for canal boating, much more elegant but much less practical than the sawn off narrowboats that Tingay, Canal Cruising etc offered. Does any hire company today offer a wheel steered cabin cruiser on the canals? Far more common are narrow boats on rivers!

Thanks Patrick. I find it very interesting too. We must meet up sometime and look through some of the old brochures. Hope these threads are keeping you sane in hospital and that you have plenty of reading material to hand !

[Pluto]

No ex-narrowboats on the L&LC.

[davidwheeler]

'No ex-narrowboats on the L&LC'.

I am an outsider when it comes to the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. I was only ever on it once, for a fortnight in the autumn of 1971. We hired a boat from Canal Boat Ltd. It was called 'Wirral Dawn' and it is my firm belief that it was one half of a wooden narrowboat. It looked like one half of a BCN dayboat, and I had had some experience of them. It was also described as a half narrowboat in the company's brochure, which I still have somewhere. There were two others, equally described. One of them was hired at the same time. The hiror was a BWB foreman and he said it was a half wooden narrowboat and it leaked like one. He told us that he made certain that he was on the mud overnight in case it sank. I think perhaps he was joking. Although he did have two young children with him. 'Wirral Dawn' leaked as well. And had a marked list to the right, which made swing bridges tricky. There was a third boat, also described as a half narrowboat. The remaining half of the two boats purchased by the company was, apparently, a bit too far gone. Ours was powered by a twin cylinder air-cooled diesel under the stern deck which was quite long and quite open. Others may know differently but our limited two week experience left us with the impression that the weather on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal is not always good. The steerer was completely exposed, not only to bad weather, but to constant noise and vibration from the engine, already of some age.  The boat was certainly a half something because no hire boat operator would design or build  a boat so hiror unfriendly. But we loved it. The owner was an elderly, dour man of military bearing and authority. He was very decent to us, given that we completely drained his diesel engine of fuel, and broke the rudder post in half on a Sunday morning. But he fined us five bob for breaking a pyrex dish and for damaging the boat's copy of BW booklet 16. We had dropped it overboard and although we fished it out, he said he could not in fairness to his future customers leave it on board. In fact it dried out quite well and I have still got it. And the best thing - Wirral Dawn was superb in reverse. If we came to a junction we would reverse into it, just to show off. Flat out. We were young then. 

So, for what it is worth: I say there is persuasive evidence that there were ex -narrowboats for hire on the Leeds & Liverpool. At least in 1971.

 

[magpie patrick]

6 hours ago, davidwheeler said:

'No ex-narrowboats on the L&LC'.

I am an outsider when it comes to the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. I was only ever on it once, for a fortnight in the autumn of 1971. We hired a boat from Canal Boat Ltd. It was called 'Wirral Dawn' and it is my firm belief that it was one half of a wooden narrowboat. It looked like one half of a BCN dayboat, and I had had some experience of them. It was also described as a half narrowboat in the company's brochure, which I still have somewhere. There were two others, equally described. One of them was hired at the same time. The hiror was a BWB foreman and he said it was a half wooden narrowboat and it leaked like one. He told us that he made certain that he was on the mud overnight in case it sank. I think perhaps he was joking. Although he did have two young children with him. 'Wirral Dawn' leaked as well. And had a marked list to the right, which made swing bridges tricky. There was a third boat, also described as a half narrowboat. The remaining half of the two boats purchased by the company was, apparently, a bit too far gone. Ours was powered by a twin cylinder air-cooled diesel under the stern deck which was quite long and quite open. Others may know differently but our limited two week experience left us with the impression that the weather on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal is not always good. The steerer was completely exposed, not only to bad weather, but to constant noise and vibration from the engine, already of some age.  The boat was certainly a half something because no hire boat operator would design or build  a boat so hiror unfriendly. But we loved it. The owner was an elderly, dour man of military bearing and authority. He was very decent to us, given that we completely drained his diesel engine of fuel, and broke the rudder post in half on a Sunday morning. But he fined us five bob for breaking a pyrex dish and for damaging the boat's copy of BW booklet 16. We had dropped it overboard and although we fished it out, he said he could not in fairness to his future customers leave it on board. In fact it dried out quite well and I have still got it. And the best thing - Wirral Dawn was superb in reverse. If we came to a junction we would reverse into it, just to show off. Flat out. We were young then. 

So, for what it is worth: I say there is persuasive evidence that there were ex -narrowboats for hire on the Leeds & Liverpool. At least in 1971.

 

 

We hired Wirral Dawn in 1972, travelling to Rodley and back from Haskayne, and then Wirral Mist in 1973 - she'd had a one way hire to Rodley, and we brought her back but first visited Selby, Goole and Sowerby Bridge. I can confirm they were narrow boat style but I'd have been 6/7 at the time and can't remember details of their construction 

[davidwheeler]

I attach to this a scan of the relevant page of Canal Boats Ltd's brochure for 1971. 

 

Does it matter whether there were ex-narrowboats on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal? No,of course it doesn't. But it does show to those used to modern hire fleets, which to me appear pretty uniform, what diversity there was in those earlier days. That is shown also in the copy brochure of Summit Cruisers. Even in the late 1970s, from brochures produced by such as Boating Holidays, you could find, if you looked carefully, really interesting boats to hire, be it those very individual designs from innovative boatbuilders of the time, to converted ex working boats. Wooden boats as well as iron and steel.  I think I may have touched on this in an earlier offering on this site, but perhaps it was elsewhere.

I am no expert in the evolution of English hire boats, but to us what was of equal importance was the boat, as well as the canal. Whether that is still important, rather than the stuff inside the boat, I do not know. 

[Pluto]

Yes, there were converted narrow boats operated from the Ship Inn at Haskayne, though I forget the operator's name. Harry Mayor from Tarleton boatyard, who sadly died last November, also converted a couple, but cut down narrowboats were not the norm for the L&LC, where the converted lifeboat or similar ruled the roost. This is one of my favourites, the Pibra photographed in 1946.

[magpie patrick]

4 minutes ago, Pluto said:

Yes, there were converted narrow boats operated from the Ship Inn at Haskayne, though I forget the operator's name.

 

 

The man in charge was Pip Dunn

 

I remember the name of the two boats we hired, that they were based in Haskayne. The Ship Inn riings a bell....

[BEngo]

The Ship at Haskayne, the Red Lion at Scarisbrick, and the Heaton's Bridge Inn were all old canal side  stomping grounds in the late 60's and early 70s.  The Morris Dancers and the Romping Donkey were not on  the canal, but close enough.  The Blood Tub at the top of the Rufford branch I never visited but it had a bit of a rep in those days

[CIEL]

On 06/01/2026 at 09:55, davidwheeler said:

I attach to this a scan of the relevant page of Canal Boats Ltd's brochure for 1971. 

 

Does it matter whether there were ex-narrowboats on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal? No,of course it doesn't. But it does show to those used to modern hire fleets, which to me appear pretty uniform, what diversity there was in those earlier days. That is shown also in the copy brochure of Summit Cruisers. Even in the late 1970s, from brochures produced by such as Boating Holidays, you could find, if you looked carefully, really interesting boats to hire, be it those very individual designs from innovative boatbuilders of the time, to converted ex working boats. Wooden boats as well as iron and steel.  I think I may have touched on this in an earlier offering on this site, but perhaps it was elsewhere.

I am no expert in the evolution of English hire boats, but to us what was of equal importance was the boat, as well as the canal. Whether that is still important, rather than the stuff inside the boat, I do not know. 

Talking of innovative boat styles, in the early seventies there was a hire base at what is now "The Turning Point" at Packet Boat Lane Bridge over the Grand Union between Cowley and Yiewsley.  They built there own boats with a very square "bow" curving down to a slight V section with two flat plates running front to back. Made from very lightweight steel, 3/16th perhaps.  The company traded as Admiral Line.  They were early adopters of converting BMC A series engines to run on Calor gas after starting on petrol.  The engine was linked to a Z drive similar to but a cheaper version of the Enfield 130.  The engine, drive unit, and fuel storage was housed in a floating tank assembly separate from the main cabin to which it could be floated up to and bolted on.  The overall length would have been of the order of 45ft or so.  They did not have the conventional windows of the time such as repurposed bus windows but rather had channels fixed above and below the openings in which ran sheets of Perspex.  Front facing side windows, each side of the front door were perspex in rubber seals.  The operation did not last long and some of the bankrupt stock could be found in Denham Yacht Station, below Uxbridge Lock, from about 1974 onwards. Ten to fifteen years later there was still one example being used as a live aboard at various locations between Uxbridge and Ricky.  Tam & Di may well remember them.