The description "Narrow Boat"

[Derek R.]

It may not count for much, but I am re-reading 'Song of The Earth' by Alexander Cordell 1969. The novel describes life for the Mostyn family of South Wales as bargees during the mid nineteenth century, and the word narrow does not appear at any point - but, it is a novel, and I do not know what research Cordell may have done in determining descriptions of the boats, though in every other social aspect of the age all seems accurate.

 

The area worked is real enough;- from Merthyr, an adventurous trip in the Bristol Channel from Swansea to Neath under a Junk rig, and a coal contract on the Neath canal using their two mules; Old Jed & Nell. There is little description of the boat save the pride in keeping the Rams Head rope-work spotlessly white with the help of pipe clay, and complete with the white tail from Mostyn's first stallion. There is mention of a cabin, and tarpaulins over 'hoops', and as they would have negotiated the Neath through Aberdulais and beyond, it would have been a 'narrow' boat, but 'barge' and 'bargee' are the words used throughout.

 

Derek

[magpie patrick]

I am just about to publish a book on the traditional boat painting on the L&LC - have a look at http://www.mikeclarke.myzen.co.uk/brightwork.htm for more details - and I suspect that the style has its origins in Celtic traditions, so a little older than 200 years.

 

Ooooh, might just order a copy: good to see something not about narrow boats for a change

 

It may not count for much, but I am re-reading 'Song of The Earth' by Alexander Cordell 1969. The novel describes life for the Mostyn family of South Wales as bargees during the mid nineteenth century, and the word narrow does not appear at any point - but, it is a novel, and I do not know what research Cordell may have done in determining descriptions of the boats, though in every other social aspect of the age all seems accurate.

 

The area worked is real enough;- from Merthyr, an adventurous trip in the Bristol Channel from Swansea to Neath under a Junk rig, and a coal contract on the Neath canal using their two mules; Old Jed & Nell. There is little description of the boat save the pride in keeping the Rams Head rope-work spotlessly white with the help of pipe clay, and complete with the white tail from Mostyn's first stallion. There is mention of a cabin, and tarpaulins over 'hoops', and as they would have negotiated the Neath through Aberdulais and beyond, it would have been a 'narrow' boat, but 'barge' and 'bargee' are the words used throughout.

 

Derek

 

Hi Derek,

 

The boats on the Glamorgan Canal and the Neath Canal were not strictly speaking narrow boats, being rather shorter and fatter (about 64 feet by 8 feet 6)

 

Cordells work is largely accurate but I have doubts about an unpowered boat making a passage from Cardiff to Neath: the boat would have fitted both canals though, so he got that bit right. A glamorgan Canal boat or a Neath Canal boat would not have fitted on the Mon and Brec or the Swansea Canal.

 

FWIW I thought the middle of the three, The Hosts of Rebecca, was the best novel.

[Derek R.]

(snip)

 

Hi Derek,

 

The boats on the Glamorgan Canal and the Neath Canal were not strictly speaking narrow boats, being rather shorter and fatter (about 64 feet by 8 feet 6)

 

Cordells work is largely accurate but I have doubts about an unpowered boat making a passage from Cardiff to Neath: the boat would have fitted both canals though, so he got that bit right. A glamorgan Canal boat or a Neath Canal boat would not have fitted on the Mon and Brec or the Swansea Canal.

 

FWIW I thought the middle of the three, The Hosts of Rebecca, was the best novel.

 

Thanks for that, I haven't read either of the others by Cordell, and I do remember seeing a photo somewhere of an eight foot something wide boat on a Welsh canal - Ah! just found: 'Britain's Lost Waterways' Vol.2.; Glamorganshire Canal boat 60' x 8'6" carrying 20t on a draught of 2' 9"; Neath & Tennant Canal boat 60' x 9', 24t on 2'9". Apparently most with cabins, straight stemmed and with little or no decoration.

And from Wikipedia:

'Swansea Canal' - "The boats were 65 feet long, 7 feet 6 inches wide and carried 22 tons of cargo when fully laden. The last narrowboat built on this canal was 'Grace Darling' in 1918 at the Godre'r Graig boat yard."

'Monmouthshire Canal' - "Because the canal was isolated from other similar undertakings, Dadford was free to set the size of the locks, and they were designed to take boats with a maximum width of 9 feet 2 inches (2.8m), a length of 63 feet (19 m) and a draught of three feet (0.9m)."

As Dadford also engineered the Brecon Canal, it should be the same dimension for craft, but Waterscape state in their pdf "55' x 8' 6" " Playing safe maybe. 'Canal Junction' description of the Mon & Brec is of being a 'narrow' canal at 8'. Jim Shead's site states:- "Length 64 foot 9 inches, beam 9 foot 2 inches. Navigation is restricted to boats of length 50 foot, beam 8 foot 6 inchs because of a bridge on a sharp bend."

 

So today, Jim Shead's seems the most logical advice, whilst in their working days, it would have been the length that prevented the Swansea, and Mon & Brecon from being used on the Neath & Tennant Canals.

 

There's a Cordell Museum too - must browse for 'The Hosts of Rebecca'. I see the title is taken from the Rebecca Riots - sounds right up my street!

[Pluto]

There were suggestions in the "barging" thread that "Narrow Boat" might not be a historic term at all, and could have been invented by L.T.C. ("Tom") Rolt.

 

So I thought I'd check, (wearing my well worn anorak).

 

I can find direct references to "Narrow Boat" in the UK censuses for England and Wales for both 1861 and 1881.

 

This occurs as a locational thing - e.g. "Near Watch House On Canal 'Loretta' Narrow Boat".

 

Also as an occupation - e.g. "Captain of Narrow Boat".

 

So I think there is absolutely no doubt that the term "Narrow Boat" has been valid for approaching 150 years.

 

I do not have access to the 1841 and 1851 censuses via anything that allows a keyword lookup, but I'd be very surprised if all the censuses 1841 to 1901 didn't contain some references to "Narrow Boat".

 

Additionally the term "Monkey Boat" can be traced back to at least 1881, where one Alice Dimmock's polace of birth is "in a Monkey Boat", (she is living at a land based address in Limehouse, but her husband is a "Bargeman").

 

So can anybody prove "Narrow Boat" existed before 1861 or "Monkey Boat" before 1881?

 

Alan

In a French book about the Worsley underground canal system published in 1842, the boats in use in the mine are described as:

1. Tub boat, 10 metres by 1.2 metres carrying 1800 kilos of coal, 6 tubs, at 0.6 metres draught, and used on the lower levels,

2. Narrow boat, 13 to 18 metres by 1.40 metres, which used the main level and could enter the side tunnels and be raised or lowered to the other levels, and

3. M boats, 13 metres by 2 metres approx and carrying 9 to 10 tons, around 32 tubs, when they would draw 0.72 metres, with 0.24 metres freeboard.

 

On the main canal there were:

1. Flats carrying 30 tons of coal, though a 60 ton flat was under construction,

2. Floats, 20.74 metres by 4.42 metres which usually carried 40 tons of coke as deck cargo,

3. Lighters, flat-bottomed boars carrying 34 tons,

4. Narrow boat, similar in design to the mine boats, but to carry 14 to 20 tons,

5. M boats which were towed in groups three by three. There were M boats at work both on the canal and underground.

 

This suggests that a narrow boat may originally have been of a shape suitable for entering the Worsley mines, but the design was enlarged to make it suitable for continuous use above ground.

[Ray]

Does this thread generate the question(s) "Why was seven foot chosen as the width of a narrow boat?" and, possibly more importantly, "How did they get it (and the consequent lock width) to be accepted as a de facto standard?"

 

Apologies of this reveals my total lack of knowledge on the subject.

[magpie patrick]

Does this thread generate the question(s) "Why was seven foot chosen as the width of a narrow boat?" and, possibly more importantly, "How did they get it (and the consequent lock width) to be accepted as a de facto standard?"

 

Apologies of this reveals my total lack of knowledge on the subject.

 

First "Why". It is believed that the bore of the original Harecastle Tunnel on the Trent and Mersey Canal was the limiting factor. This dictated the beam, and so the locks were made to fit this. seventy feet long was already a common size

 

It became a standard partly by design, in that the connecting canals were sensibly built to meet it, but the further away you get (Somerset Coal Canal, Chesterfield Canal, Wilts and Berks for example) the adherence to this standard varies from "because it was there" (The Chesterfield was engineered by James Brindley and then by his son in law Hugh Henshall, and thus it may have been default) to coincidence, the SCC locks are half the beam and the same length as the K and A, whihc just happens to approximate to narrow beam, but is slightly short and slightly narrow.

 

ALSO, BE WARNED (and I am having a go at those who insist their ex GUCCC boats should be able to go up the Llangollen Canal) the narrow standard is APPROXIMATE. the locks vary between 6 feet ten and nearly eight feet, and the boats themselves varied when built between about six feet nine and seven feet one, the Shropshire Union System having many of the narrower locks and the BCN and Grand Union branches having the wider ones.

[Pluto]

ALSO, BE WARNED (and I am having a go at those who insist their ex GUCCC boats should be able to go up the Llangollen Canal) the narrow standard is APPROXIMATE. the locks vary between 6 feet ten and nearly eight feet, and the boats themselves varied when built between about six feet nine and seven feet one, the Shropshire Union System having many of the narrower locks and the BCN and Grand Union branches having the wider ones.

This begs the question, how did they measure length in the mid-eighteenth century as there were no standard measures readily available. Narrow boat dimensions are half the width of the standard Mersey flat which used north west river navigations at the time, approximately 69 feet by 14 feet.

 

When building locks, width would have been fairly easy to measure using standardized wood sticks. However, even here they could easily be variations because contractors construction techniques would vary. Length would have been a bit more difficult, so early locks tend to be around 72 feet. As they improved methods of standardizing measurement, the length decreased slightly, with late eighteenth century locks being the shortest at around 71 feet. The cost saving in building short locks against the increased time for passing such locks resulted in early nineteenth century locks tending to be longer at 74 feet. Of course, this is a generalization, and no doubt there are specific cases which may be different.

[Derek R.]

It would certainly be a logical step to make a boat half the width of an existing 'wide' boat so as to both be able to fit two alongside in a 'wide' lock, and when making haste to engineer canals across hilly terrain and especially tunnelling, cut expenses down for the shareholders. Hence seven feet or thereabouts. Why 14'? Any spirit mediums amongst us, we need to ask a question . . . 'is there anybody there . . .'

 

How wide was the average mine shaft if not just wide enough for a pony hauling a 'tram', and able to pass men walking to and from a face - about seven feet?