News

BMS is arranging a weekend of craft courses at the National Waterways Museum, Ellesmere Port on Saturday/Sunday November 22-23 2008.

2-day fender making with Dave Walker(details here)
2-day bonnet making with Marry Parry (author of Boatwoman's Bonnet book)
1-day (23rd) crochet for beginners with members of the Waterways Craft Group
1-day (23rd) rag rugging with Jane Lane

For more information

SHAD and GIFFORD
as a pair and horseboating, at events throughout June in conjunction with Cheshire Year of Gardens

This summer, the Museum is participating in the ‘Cheshire Year of Gardens’ which is the major publicity event in 2008 in Cheshire, involving many community organisations.

Pictures of Shad and Gifford's trip are available here

Shad, towing Gifford, travelled to Chester, Middlewich and Anderton carrying a specially designed ‘garden display’ in Shad's hold. The boats operated as a pair and both boats were travelling and on display and accessible to the public at various places, they departed on 6th June.

BMS was asked to organise the moving of the boats, crewing arrangements and to assist in the public display, providing we hope excellent publicity throughout June for the Museum and the Society.

This event is being supported by other local organisations with whom we have worked together many times.

In particular they met up with Saturn at Barbridge for the leg into Middlewich and participated in the Middlewich Boat & Folk Festival over the weekend of 13th to 15th June.

Also taking part were our friends from BW Wales & Border Counties with their heritage fleet pair, Lindsay and Keppel (Jim Taylor and team), and a community boat, Prince William (crewed by Kate Nicholls and team) coming from opposite parts of the Trent and Mersey Canal. During the Middlewich weekend we will also be supporting horseboating displays.

They then joined with the Horse Boating Society to horseboat Gifford to Anderton with further events on the way and attended the Chester and District IWA Anderton Rally on the River Weaver at the bottom of the lift on 21st - 22nd June. Finally Shad and Gifford returned to the Museum where they will be star attractions in the 3 day ‘Boats and Blooms’ event at the Museum over the first weekend in July.

BMS has also joined in with the scarecrow display at the museum - take a look at Ellie Porter beside Amaryllis in the Island Warehouse

Gifford to go to the IWA National Festival

This year the IWA national festival is to be held at ‘cut end’- Autherley Junction.  As this is one of the places where Gifford would have worked we have decided to attend this rally.  We will hopefully be pairing up with Stour for part of the weekend in order to recreate a Clayton pair working round the Wolverhampton area.

The Young family have kindly offered to tow us using Rudd, an ex Fellows Morton and Clayton motor still fitted with a Bolinder engine!  We will be boating with them from the Museum to the National and back again.  This is an excellent opportunity for members to get involved with pair boating and to learn and practice their skills.  In addition there will be opportunities to learn more about the operation of Bolinders.

The provisional timetable is as follows.  Please contact

August

Saturday 16th - Sun. 17th - Monday 18th (morning) Rudd from Bedford Basin to Ellesmere Port

Monday 18th (afternoon) Rudd and Gifford from Ellesmere Port to Christleton

Tuesday 19th Christleton to Audlem (Cox Bank)

Wednesday 20th Audlem to Brewood

Thursday 21st To mooring at the National

Friday 22nd - Saturday 23rd - Sunday 24th - at National

Monday 25th (late afternoon) to Brewood

Tuesday 26th Brewood to Audlem

Wednesday 27th Audlem to Christleton

Thursday 28th Christleton to Port and Rudd back to Chester

Friday 29th Rudd to Anderton

Saturday 30th Rudd back to Bedford Basin

19th May 2008

The ‘TLC’ Project

Boat Museum Society volunteers at the National Waterways Museum, Ellesmere Port are working on a most exciting project. Since January(2008) many of the boats stored at the Museum have had a dose of ‘Tender Loving Care’.

Steve Stamp, the Chairman of the Boat Museum Society says “This is not the long term restoration or preservation that these nationally important boats deserve - but it is a serious attempt by our volunteers to improve the condition of the boats and to slow down their decline”.

The project is jointly funded by BMS and The Waterways Trust and the work follows guidelines laid down by museum curatorial staff from The National Waterways Museum.

Dr Delia Garratt, Acting Head of Collections for The Waterways Trust says “We are delighted that BMS are helping with the care of these boats.  This work programme comes at the end of an important study to review the entire boat collection and the creation of a priority list to help us focus our efforts for their on-going preservation.”

Steve Stamp adds “At times the work isn't easy or glamorous but it is very satisfying to do something positive for the collection. Our volunteers are an enthusiastic team, we spent a lot of time planning the work and now we can see that things have improved and we have a real sense of achievement.”

Groups of volunteers work on the boats every Thursday and Sunday and by Easter there was a significant improvement in the collection.  The ‘TLC’ project involves a variety of tasks and skills such as cleaning boats, preparing paintwork, basic painting, simple DIY woodwork and the salvaging and preservation of important pieces of equipment.  Most of the work takes place in an undercover area that has been specially prepared by volunteers and museum staff.

Boats that have already been put to rights are Bantam, Aleida and Scorpio (phase 1). Work is ongoing on Marlyn and Bacup. The main focus at the moment is on repainting Marbury, and work started on Aries today.

If you want to know more about these boats please look at the Draft boat Interpretation website

If you’d like to help with this project or need further information please contact Chris Cunliffe, the Operations Manager at the National Waterways Museum, Ellesmere Port
on 0151 355 5017.

For more information on the work parties look at the Workshop page

Bantam's windows were smashed by vandals .........so BMS members' first job was to remove them for reglazing

World Heritage Site nomination for Pontcysyllte aqueduct

Pontcysyllte aqueduct has now been confirmed as this year’s British nomination for World Heritage Site status. Each nation is allowed only one nomination each year, and following an international conference in Wrexham last June (see RE:PORT 177 (September 2007) page 9) the Culture Secretary James Purnell has now authorised the nomination to proceed to UNESCO. The final international confirmation is due to be made in July 2009.

There are at present 23 World Heritage Sites in the UK, of which four include canals (Blaenavon, Derwent valley, Ironbridge and Saltaire). UNESCO’s requirements for formal “inscription” as a World Heritage Site are becoming increasingly stringent, and the nomination must take into account not only the historical context, but also landscape quality, and economic and cultural influences. The proposed inscribed area extends well beyond the aqueduct itself to include some 11 miles of canal from Llantysilio weir (the Horseshoe Falls) to the tunnels, aqueduct, railway viaduct and a representative section of Telford’s Holyhead road all at Chirk.

There is a very detailed and beautifully illustrated technical document to support the nomination which can be read at
http://www.wrexham.gov.uk/english/heritage/pontcysyllte_campaign/index.htm

but be warned - don’t just press the PRINT button – the document is 232 pages long!

Why not leave a legacy to help the future work of the The Boat Museum Society

We need a Publicist - Can you help?

BMS badly needs someone to take on the task of  publicising the activities of the society.
We now have this superb new web site – but at present are not very good at telling television companies, newspapers, waterways magazines and other organisations about what we are doing.
In fact, we are very bad at it.

Would you be willing to take on this task?
You would need to develop contacts and make sure that you know what the society is doing, through contact with the committee and the web site.
If you are interested and would like to discuss your ideas