Where has all the unthusiam gone, is the heart of preservation now dead?

[tom_c]

I would quite happily take on an iron Josher as a butty, i would certainly hate to see these boats recovered then chopped to make motors, too many boats have been lost this way, and I certainly would not chop the back end off one.

However cost does play a big part in stopping people of my generation taking on extra financial commitments at a time when many cannot afford a house, never mind another boat.

Tom

[RLWP]

So, on a whim, I'll go and save a canal. Oh, but - all the canals have restoration societies with committees and plans and funding officers. And all the easy ones have been done so it's only the difficult ones left, and they are proceeding very, very slowly

 

OK then, I'll buy a wooden boat. But they are all now very old indeed, so I'm probably buying a set of knees and a 3D shape to make some plans from. If I can find somewhere to do it and around £200,000 I'll have a nice replica one day

 

Ahh then, what about an old working boat. Oh, all the good ones are already owned. And most of the poor ones are owned too. Oh dear, what shall I do?

 

I could start a memorabilia collection, except everything has become collectable and I can't afford them

 

It's not a very rosy picture, is it? The days of hiring a dredger to save the Stourbridge or buying a boat for the price of a second hand car are long gone

 

Richard

Edited April 22, 2016 by RLWP

[Guest]

I suspect nobody can afford it.

 

This.

 

I doubt stuff like this is considered any sort of 'priority' in these times of 'austerity' - sad but probably true.

[Laurence Hogg]

Laurence, Are you suggesting that anyone interested can just go and claim one of these boats? I seem to recall that was more or less what happened when boats sunk in the Cheshire flashes were retrieved a few years ago.

 

But somebody presumably (at least technically) owns these boats. Is that CRT (as successors to BW who sank them)? The current landowner?

 

I would love to rock up with a couple of mates, a JCB perhaps, a pump or two and a load of tarpaulins and see if we could get one of the iron boats afloat. But I'm not sure its as easy as that these days.

 

As for the wooden boats, being sunk may have preserved the lower parts of them, but its difficult enough to find people willing to take on the wooden narrow boats that do exist, and the example of those that have been donated to museums is hardly a happy story. For these I think the best you can hope for is an archaeological excavation and recording. And someone will need to fund that.

Dave,

I doubt you could just claim one. However approached the council with the right attitudes to conservation and recording I think the path may be easy. There was a time when CRT thought they still owned the craft however once that was proven not, they lost interest and the council were satisfied that the boats were theirs on their land. Removal of silt would be no problem as there is no contamination in the fill, its just natural and old gravel pit waste. I would have been there some time ago had t not been for on-going problems health wise which would prevent me from being anywhere near that type of recovery. The boats deserve a better future, the Purton site was virtually unknown until Chris Coburn and myself highlighted in our film " A Canal too far" and brought it via that to the attention of Central TV's waterworld series, now look whats happened, its a world heritage site. There isn't a single example of a London area wide boat left afloat, yet these are the craft which built London, trading over the K&A to fetch stone and of course bringing all the bricks in and taking the waste out. Boyer is currently (as far as I know) the oldest trading concern whose business started with waterway transport on the GJCC, I am sure they would help.

[magpie patrick]

In the past many boats were preserved because

 

1) the specimens were in reasonable repair

 

2) they were suited to leisure or similar post-commercial use such as owner-operator domestic coal deliveries

 

3) they were cheap - many narrow boats were converted because it was the simplest and cheapest way to get a holiday/liveaboard

 

Similarly the early days of railway preservation saw many locomotives go straight from service into beneficial use on heritage railways

 

The basis for preservation has little to do with a deserving history and everything to do with right place, right time, right cost. As a result some ships lifeboats have been preserved and some styles of narrowboat have been lost. Many of the boats preserved were part of the last hurrah of canal carrying in the 1930's. If we are to bemoan the lost boats, where is the fleet of preserved tub boats or starvationers? What happened to the last of the shorter narrowboats with long rudders that went down the tidal Thames before motorboats came along? What has happened to the Manchester Bolton and Bury "bastard boats" that were slightly short and very wide. Even now, surviving and serviceable boats such as sheffield sized keels can be lost because no user wants them.

 

The best bet for some of these boats if they were to be preserved at all would be a business plan that gave the preserved boat an end user - with buildings this is the norm and has saved some fascinating heritage that 30 years ago would have been lost: the LNWR warehouse that is now next to Beetham Tower in Manchester, Ebley Mill in Stroud, now the home of the District Council, and even my own office in Cheap Street, Frome...

 

There's a challenge for someone, find a buyer for a restored GU wide beam, who's deposit and stage payments will fund the restoration

[Black Ibis]

 

 

I can assure you there is still an active enthusiasm with the next generation. The problem however is the cost of boats increasing, as they become more sought after. We all do our bit in our own way with what we have.

 

This is what I'd say, I agree with you,there are thousands of young boaters in and around that area and I can think of plenty who are and have the skills and might be interested if asked. A few with access to boatyards also.

I don't recall seeing this posted on or discussed on any of their Facebook groups. You probably won't find them at Braunston, more likely trying to use their skills to fix up something wooden out somewhere in Kent.

If you're interested in engaging people is it possible to organise visit to where these boats are?

As for the money thing, well, younger generation tends to crowdfund everything. The way things are done has changed. None of us have any money but we all chipped in to get The Village butty off the ground. Anyone curious will be able to see what was done at the Cavalcade.

 

Agree with Dan above. I own an historic narrowboat and on my limited income being custodian of Willow is all I can manage. But there is enthusiasm, bags of it, within my generation. FTS manages to look after the Canal Museum's tug as well as our boat!

 

LM, I look forwards to paying a visit to the Village Butty at the Cavalcade - we'll be there on Bantam IV.

[Johnboy770]

Another ditto, I would be interested if I had the time and the financials but sadly both are in short supply.

 

Another Ditto, I'd be happy to just have the funds to maybe purchase a floating usable one first..

[Ray T]

With regard to the boats in Harefield I can only look a bit closer to home. What has happened to Lucy? http://hnbc.org.uk/boats/lucy

 

Look on Peter Boyce's site: http://www.phobox.com/lucy/ This now appears :

 

Service Unavailable

HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable

 

Here is a historic wooden boat partially saved and yet every time I drive through Braunston not a lot of progress appears to be happening. This is not a criticism by any manner of means but here is a boat worthy of restoration too, but I don't see a lot of preservationists rushing to help. I am as guilty as most here because if I cared that passionately I should be there offering time or money.

 

Also Hardy at Puddle Banks, is now sitting on the bottom and there is the sad butty at Wolfhamcote. Both these boats are much easier to reclaim than those in Harefield yet they are left to deteriorate. I am sure there must be other worthy causes on other parts of the system as well.

 

Does it again hark back to money? As RLWP suggested you could easily spend £200K on restoring a boat and you would certainly not realise that on selling it, at today's prices £70K tops?

 

I for one am not in any position throw money around like that.

Edited April 22, 2016 by Ray T

[Stilllearning]

Agree with Dan above. I own an historic narrowboat and on my limited income being custodian of Willow is all I can manage. But there is enthusiasm, bags of it, within my generation. FTS manages to look after the Canal Museum's tug as well as our boat!

 

LM, I look forwards to paying a visit to the Village Butty at the Cavalcade - we'll be there on Bantam IV.

As an ex volunteer at the London Canal Museum, it might be worth asking there.

 

The London Canal Museum has some very experienced volunteers and fundraisers who may well be able to help?

[IanM]

With regard to the boats in Harefield I can only look a bit closer to home. What has happened to Lucy? http://hnbc.org.uk/boats/lucy

 

Look on Peter Boyce's site: http://www.phobox.com/lucy/ This now appears :

 

Service Unavailable

HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable

 

Here is a historic wooden boat partially saved and yet every time I drive through Braunston not a lot of progress appears to be happening. This is not a criticism by any manner of means but here is a boat worthy of restoration too, but I don't see a lot of preservationists rushing to help. I am as guilty as most here because if I cared that passionately I should be there offering time or money.

 

Don't panic Ray. I was in Pete's yard on Sunday and work is definitely progressing with Lucy, albeit slowly. He does have paid work to do too

 

Edited to add: When I first went there in November he was measuring the bow planks in situ. Those planks are now off and the whole boat braced and propped to keep the remaining bits in the correct place. Remember he is rebuilding the boat in situ and not just measuring it and rebuilding from scratch.

 

https://flic.kr/s/aHskyq5UPW

Edited April 22, 2016 by IanM

[Ray T]

Many thanks for the update Ian.

[David Mack]

I doubt you could just claim one. However approached the council with the right attitudes to conservation and recording I think the path may be easy.

 

But if I just said I wanted to raise an iron boat, and I wanted to convert it to something I can pleasure boat on, that wouldn't really meet your test of the "right attitude to conservation and recording". And yet without that objective, there wouldn't be much point in me (or I suspect anyone else) doing it.

[Tim Lewis]

As an ex volunteer at the London Canal Museum, it might be worth asking there.

 

The London Canal Museum has some very experienced volunteers and fundraisers who may well be able to help?

 

If we (The London Canal Museum) had accepted wooden boat we have been offered over the years you wouldn't be able to see any water in Battlebridge Basin.

 

We keep our heads above the water in terms of money and volunteers but made the decision many years ago that apart from our Bantam tug we would not get involved in boat restoration, the enormous costs and volunteer hours that would be required would just not work.

 

We do however 'sponsor' boat restoration at Ellesmere Port where they have the expertise to put the money to good use.

 

Tim

Edited April 22, 2016 by Tim Lewis

[bag 'o' bones]

snip.....

 

Despite massive research and investigation by Mark Pullinger in the main, assisted by other enthusiasts like myself who could help access and interpret what was there, scant interest came from the "right quarters" ie BW / CRT and the surrounding councils.

From experience Its not just canals, councils have no interest in supporting preserved railways if it involves investing money, even if a well prepared business plan suggests that it would benefit the local economy.

 

However proven beyond doubt Hawtreys pit at Harefield contains a massive amount of recoverable, reusable, restorable hulls, there are 11 iron "Joshers" for starters.

I've no doubt this is true, but considering that an average boat hull would potentially require thousands of pounds to restore the number of people/organisations willing to part with their cash would very small indeed. I seem to recall a museum recently destroyed, or at least were threatening to destroy a number of unrestored boats because they didn't have the funds to restore them?

 

snip...

From an archaeological point of view, the heritage mood has swung from excavating and preserving to leaving in situ simply because of the spiralling costs of excavation and the on-going costs of maintenance of recovered artefacts.

 

Its a simple economic fact that unless a preserved boat/building/steam locomotive cannot earn its keep or attract sufficient grants for on going maintenance, restoration is unlikely to happen.

Edited April 22, 2016 by bag 'o' bones

[bag 'o' bones]

I would quite happily take on an iron Josher as a butty, i would certainly hate to see these boats recovered then chopped to make motors, too many boats have been lost this way, and I certainly would not chop the back end off one.

However cost does play a big part in stopping people of my generation taking on extra financial commitments at a time when many cannot afford a house, never mind another boat.

Tom

But surely a converted iron josher is better than allowing one to rot away? I'm not an expert on converting or restoring boats but I'm sure a saw a butty converted to power by attaching a hydraulic power pack to the rear tiller?

[Derek R.]

Indeed, HAMPTON:

http://hnbc.org.uk/boats/hampton

 

I'm led to believe it works very well.

[dave moore]

Laurence

 

I have great empathy for your original sentiments. Back in the day, the majority of canal folk were enthusiasts, driven by the desire to preserve and conserve and a camaraderie existed then amongst them, whether boaters or not,,that has largely been replaced by the " client" mentality of more recent times. We carried tarpaulins to seal leaky gates, winches to haul ourselves off scours and a keb on the cabin top to shift a brick from a cill....there was an independent mindset that made boating both a challenge and a pleasure.

 

Sadly, many modern boaters have no connection with or interest in the traditions that drew us and many others to the cut....I was appalled years ago to be asked why our boat carried so much polished brass, rope work etc, though I'm sure that the boater who asked the question was sincere. It doesn't get better, though I'm sure that other earlier posts have hit the nail on the head regarding health and safety issues in recovering old stuff from Harefield. If rescued, restored then stuffed in aspic to preserve them....what then? Cynical I may be, but there are enough restored craft appearing at events crewed by enthusiasts, not all of whom are as knowledgeable as they could be. I recall a well known butty being supposedly " strapped" in to a lock at a local event, using a length of cotton line around the ground paddle post instead of the real thing...sod me! It snapped, the boat clouted the bottom gates... But how many onlookers recognised the cock up...few, I suspect. I fear we are, in the main, fighting a losing battle...but I hope I'm wrong!

 

Dave

[bag 'o' bones]

Indeed, HAMPTON:

http://hnbc.org.uk/boats/hampton

 

I'm led to believe it works very well.

Thats the one

 

A good example of bringing something back into practical use without infringing to much on the original design

[alan_fincher]

I would quite happily take on an iron Josher as a butty, i would certainly hate to see these boats recovered then chopped to make motors, too many boats have been lost this way, and I certainly would not chop the back end off one.

However cost does play a big part in stopping people of my generation taking on extra financial commitments at a time when many cannot afford a house, never mind another boat.

Tom

 

But surely a converted iron josher is better than allowing one to rot away? I'm not an expert on converting or restoring boats but I'm sure a saw a butty converted to power by attaching a hydraulic power pack to the rear tiller?

 

I think the harsh reality is that even existing buttys in reasonable condition are regularly failing to find new owners, and several could currently be considered "at risk". Some have been cut to make two "motors" in very recent times, of course.

 

Admittedly the greater number currently seem to be "Grand Unions", but equally Josher buttys don't seem to have had any great record of being quickly snapped up when they come on the market.

 

Even some of those doing the retail fuel trade business who do own buttys will admit they don't really need them for their operation, but have bought one to ensure that it survives, and apart from those owned by the trusts, and those in the extensive South Midland fleet, (where money is a bit more freely available!), I can't think of that many other private individuals who can fully justify owning one, however appealing the idea is.

 

I'm not sure what narrow beam buttys are in Harefield that have any real prospect of being a sensible restoration project, but even if there are some, unless particularly unique, why would you take one on, when there are already buttys in far better condition in strong danger of being cut?

[jeannette smith harrison]

I dont have the knowledge on boat raising & preservation,

 

But i do have the enthusiasm & would be more than happy to do anything I could to help should

a time come that it is possible to raise some of the boats.

I stop @ the area almost every month my Grandad ,Dad his brothers & family members all had

their ashes put into the cut @ the was then entrance cut into side to make a way into the flash.

My Dad was born in Harefield (inside Black Jack Lock) on a Gelatine White wide beam.

Sadly as time goes passed the possibility gets less & less

[alan_fincher]

This is a direct cut and paste from someone on Facebook tonight......

I've been corrected . It is not a Bantock it's an unpowered Woolwich butty from 1936.
Hmm love a Bantock but a Woolwich is still historical.
Anybody know if a motor could be installed in one of these.

 

 

 

 

The future of buttys?

[Derek R.]

As we know, it can be done sympathetically but what's the chance of the stern being cut off for a bow, or becoming a front garden flower pot as a status symbol?

 

Money trumps history, and lack of it leaves them left below the surface. Not all Barry yard loco's were restored to steam, it's all down to economics.

[Ray T]

I think that another issue that the cut has had and perhaps still has is that of perception? Referring back to a previous post which mentioned train spotting.

 

In the late 1930's the Top Link engine drivers of prestigious trains, e.g. The Coronation Scot, The Coronation etc. were looked upon as the Concorde pilots of their day, a glamorous desirable job. In the days of my boyhood (1950's) I can still remember boys wanting to be engine drivers and girls wanting to be nurses or air stewardesses, despite the fact engine men often had a physically demanding dirty job.

 

Perhaps the difference being that trains were much more in the public eye being major transport for people which the canals never attained. The canals had packet boats but when the railways appeared they had one element that the cut could never have - speed and speed became "glamorous".

 

As a flippant side the imaginary headline. " Narrowboat President breaks the canal boat steam record of 6 mph" isn't in the same league as Mallard's effort is it?

 

Also unfortunately in the recent past 1950's to early 1970's, the view of the cut was that it was a "dirty stinking ditch", both in the eyes of local authorities and the public. I can still remember my mother telling me to keep away from canals because they "were not very nice places".

 

Even now, go to any preserved railway or steam main line run, there will be little boys and grown men gazing up at the footplate willing the crew to let them on. Preserved railways also offer "footplate" experiences where you get to fire and drive a short train. Done one myself, a fantastic experience. As much at I love boating I struggle to see "Would you like to stand in the hatches of my working boat sonny" having the same attraction to a little lad.

 

Perhaps this is a additional business opportunity for those with preserved ex working boats, offer the equivalent of a footplate experience? I can almost hear the comments - what about insurance, BSS etc. but if we want to encourage people to get involved with canals today efforts have to be made.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Ray T

[tom_c]

The attitude towards motorising butties probably comes from the cut becoming more of a linear council estate than something people should preserve, especially in London. I'm sure a continuous moorer would be able to use the lack of an engine as an excuse to never move.

Tom

[kris88]

The attitude towards motorising butties probably comes from the cut becoming more of a linear council estate than something people should preserve, especially in London. I'm sure a continuous moorer would be able to use the lack of an engine as an excuse to never move.

Tom

So it's the fault of people living on boats in London that these boats arent getting preserved?

I think you'll find people where cutting buttys up to make motors along time before living on a boat became an issue.

 

Regards kris