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Canal Boats

Thats a great piece of news Jennyann thanks for posting the link!:):)
 
jennyann said:
This is a "good news" article about the restoration of two canal boats with a connection to Aston and HP Sauce....
https://www.birminghampost.net/news...een-given-a-new-lease-of-life-65233-22589994/
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Hi Jennyann,
Way back in the early 1950s a group of youths from the Federation of Birmingham Boys Clubs assisted in rebuilding a sunken barge (as they were known) Narrowboat today. It was converted to accomodate about sixteen people. It was used mainly at weekends going from Gas Street to Kings Norton, through the canal to Tardebigge, through the tunnel. I had some wonderful weekends on that boat. At times breaking ice on the way back with long polls. I'm still into sailing now. Does anyone on the site remember this boat. I cannot remember its name. A friend of mine Terry Hatton (deceased) lived in the same road in Witton. His father worked on the project as one of the qualified boatbuilders from Spencer Abbot, Tyburn Road right by Spaghetti. Regards George:cool::cool::cool: (Snow blinded)
 
Posts #5 - #21 were moved to this thread from Essence of the 1950s and 60s thread, which raised the following question about the Longboat pub.

Never followed why the place was called Longboat rather than Narrow Boat. After all a narrow boat is associated with canals whereas a longboat was always associated with ocean going sailing ships,
 
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Some people always get confused with the terminology for narrow boats, which of course is the correct description. The call them barges which you get on the Thames, or on the continent, generally on rivers or very wide canals, or longboats, as the Vikings used.
Would be interesting to see a Viking raiding party coming into Gas Street basin.
Now stop being silly!!!:D
 
Elmdon Boy said:
Some people always get confused with the terminology for narrow boats, which of course is the correct description. The call them barges which you get on the Thames, or on the continent, generally on rivers or very wide canals, or longboats, as the Vikings used.
Would be interesting to see a Viking raiding party coming into Gas Street basin.
Now stop being silly!!!:D
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Elmdon way back in another dimension 1960's , while doing my apprenticeship one of the sparks bought a canal boat. We all collectively called it a barge , he was quite assertive with his response of a canal boat over a certain length , ceases to be a barge and becomes a narrowboat
 
People purleese, they are narrow boats, barges carried goods and were working boats, canals rivers wherever, narrow boats are water based caravans, some vacational, some homes, known as live aboards, some businesses, water based bookshops, craft shops and suppliers of coals and kindling. Vacationers and live aboards and never the twain shall meet.
Bob
 
Terminology can catch you out often. For instance vessels that are specific to and sail the Great Lakes of North America are usually known as boats - even those up to 1000ft. + in length.
 
mikejee said:
I always thought barges were what were on the wider canals and rivers, and the narrower ones necessary for the older traditional canals were narrow boats.
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In terms of our inland waterways, I also go with Mikes description. I would also add that I think of barges as a boat that has a flat bottom and was towed.

Boating terminology has evolved over thousands of years, so I think its hard have a subjective answer. There is an author called Hugh Conway-Jones who has written and researched a lot of information about cargo caring boats in the UK, he has a website. I do recall once him saying that Longboat was a correct term for what we also call narrow boats or barges, but cannot find the article.
https://www.gloucesterdocks.me.uk/
 
Most of the boats that worked the canals - and the tradition is carried on with the pleasure and house boats - carried names and that is how they were referenced it appears. The Birmingham Canal system had some boats peculiar to it, namely the longer 'Ampton (Wolverhampton) boats for great capacity and the day boats (Joey's) which were usually horse drawn. As far as I know canal boats were often referred to by names which described their type of work or usual journey. I suspect many terms in use originated 'on the bank' rather than on the 'cut'. :)
https://www.workingboats.com/photos_of_bcn_boats.htm
 
Intriguing, Alan. A member of my late wife's family married a member of the BAIZON / BASING family of Basingstoke, who had escaped the humdrum agricultural life of Hampshire to work on the canals and eventually ended up as lockkeepers at Chester Street, but this is a bit off topic as it was in late Victorian times. What doesn't appear to have been discussed in all the various canal threads is the building of these canal boats. There presumably were specialist boat builders somewhere, but where? I've seen no mention of this on the Forum.

Maurice
 
Alan,

I couldn't agree more, but these "general discussion" threads always seem to end up as a mish-mash of everything and make indexing & searching difficult. A title such as "The Essence of the 50s & 60s" was always going to become a minefield, I've set the timer, and am now going to get out before it all blows up in my face! Thanks for the info. :) :) :)

Maurice
 
I think a lot of boats were built in the black country. Fellows Morton & Clayton built them. They built at least one for Cadbury (am going to do thread on Cadbury boats, but have not got round to it yet). another was built for them by J.F.Parry in Wolverhampton
 
Very interesting to look up the definition of barge and also to read Wikipedia on the subject of barges and discover that in the Midlands and on the Severn they were called longboats. Morturn is also correct as the dictionary defines a barge as a vessel that is towed.
Bob
 
There was a small boat building yard called Les Allen and Son Yard at Valencia Warf in Oldbury. It was a long-established family firm who had been there years. I remember the place reasonably well as my dad used to work there on the weekends. It was almost identical to the one in the Black Country Museum, right down to the steam chest and sheds made from old wooden boats.

I recall the warf was owned by a company called Elements (& son?), they also had premises at Salford Bridge right on the corner of Tyburn Road. There may have also been a boat builder by the name of Spencer Abbot, who also worked at Salford Bridge.
 
To cloud the issue even more, not only are many barges (usually flat bottomed) powered by sail, many are also pushed or pulled by tugs, especially the larger ones. By large we are thinking of over 500 ft. in length. The uses are manifold: car or rail ferries, tankers, bulk dry goods in fact anything that needs shipping by rivers, canal or sea. Most of the British river sailing barges - which have a very long ancestry - are known by their respective type names, as are canal boats.
 
Bob Davis said:
Very interesting to look up the definition of barge and also to read Wikipedia on the subject of barges and discover that in the Midlands and on the Severn they were called longboats. Morturn is also correct as the dictionary defines a barge as a vessel that is towed.
Bob
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I've allways understood that you must never call a canal boat a "barge". I thought a barge was rowed, as in The Royal Barge, or The Admiral's Barge . . . .?
 
As I said earlier this is all down to semantics, if you read the English Oxford Dictionary definition, it gives three all of which have been mentioned in all these posts we are all singing from the same song sheet, but in canal users terms a barge was an open working boat pulled by a horse in early days, but in later years engines (coal fired and gasoline) were fitted. However now propriety demands that you call the water caravan a narrow boat or to enliven the discussion, the reason that the locks on the Hatton Flight on the Grand Union are wide....a Broad Beam, based on old Dutch and French boats. By the way a butty had nothing to do with chips, bread or friends it was a barge towed behind a larger barge. Lyn has just reminded me that there is a good book on West Midland Canals by R H Davies.
Bob
 
Canal boats- the common term for the boats on West Midlands Canals is a narrow boat. If it is on the Severn, then used to be called a long boat. Narrow Boats are very prolific on modern waterways, but on Midland waterways of the past, they fall into different categories. The two basic divisions are the open boats and the cabin boats. Open Boats were a basic narrowboat being totally open or a basic shelter or cabin. The cabin boat had accommodation for the boatmen, including a bed and fire. Another set of terms were a stage boat and a fly boat. Both were used by merchandise carriers, the former for all wharf traffic, the later calling a specific wharves, travelling day and night and covering large distances to Manchester, the Potteries and London.

Then there are the specific terms for boats owned by a particular firm, such as Josher and Bantock Boat.

Barges is often referred to as those that were found on wider waterways including rivers and included Keels, Flats, Trent Boats, Trows and Wherries.
 
So When did the specific term a canal “narrow boat" come into general use? (as opposed to a narrow canal boat)
 
To those who build sea going or large river vessels they are often nicknamed 'mud scrapers' :D
One of the reasons Josiah Wedgwood and other pottery manufacturers encouraged canals to be built was that pottery/china products had far less breakage in transit than pack horses and horse drawn carts.
 
Here is a letter to Birmingham Daily Post from April 1970. This chap is upset that the pub has been named the Longboat. He maintains that the canal boats in this part of the world have been called narrow-boats for over 200 years.

I don't believe that he is right.

46AC54B7-88EE-4D70-92C5-B9A3944A1295.jpeg
 
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