Famous Fleets:
Midlands & Coast - Alan Faulkner looks at a leading but short-lived carrier whose narrowboats were mainly seen on the Shropshire Union Canal
Art of the Waterways:
20th Century Needlework & Clothes of the Cut - Avril Lansdell looks at spider-web belts and other distinctive clothes that boaters wore
Historical Profiles:
Leeds & Liverpool - Mike Clarke looks at the last trans-Pennine canal to be completed
Picturing the Past:
Alexander's Album - David Blagrove looks through Walter Alexander’s photographs of Stoke Bruerne and Blisworth
Tracing Family History:
Paper Trail - Lorna York goes on a 'Paper Trail' to trace her boating ancestors
A Broader Outlook:
Dracone on the Severn - Mike Taylor looks at a novel way of transporting liquids on the River Severn
Living History:
Weaver Milepost - Colin Edmondson discovers history in the hedgerow of the River Weaver
Canals That Never Were:
The Ellesmere Canal to Shrewsbury - Richard Dean on the never-built canal from Ellesmere to Shrewsbury
Alan Faulkner looks at a leading but short-lived carrier whose narrowboats were mainly seen on the Shropshire Union Canal:
Midlands & Coast Canal Carriers Ltd had a relatively short life as an independent carrying concern – just seventeen years – but in that time it more than fulfilled the reason for which it was originally set up. That intention was to provide an effective competitor to the Great Western Railway, following the demise of the leading canal carrier on the Shropshire Union Canal in 1921.
At the time much of the output from manufacturers based in the Midlands was sent away either by railway or canal for export. Typical of these was Noah Hingley & Sons Ltd of Netherton Ironworks, much of whose output was exported via Liverpool. At the time Hingleys’ works were served exclusively by canal with a large proportion of their production being collected either by long distance narrowboats to be conveyed to Ellesmere Port for onward transhipment to Liverpool October docks, or by short haul day boats for delivery to one of the several railway transhipment basins on the Birmi…