SPECIAL OFFER – Historic Working Narrow Boats Today 1 & 2 (£9.90 off rrp)

SPECIAL OFFER – buy both volumes of this book together for £30.00 (instead of £39.90 if bought separately).

Many of the canals constructed in the 40 years either side of 1800 had locks just over 7 feet wide. Now known as "narrow" canals (as other canals had wider locks), they were worked by "narrow boats", typically 70' long by 7' wide. No-one can know how many working narrow boats were built over the 200 years until the last in about 1962, but we do know that close to 1000 still exist.

Volume 1 (published 2013) is an unique pictorial record of half of these historic working narrow boats as they are today, or were within the last few years. Some are in pristine restored condition, a small number are still working, many have been converted for holidays or to live on, but others perhaps need a little tender loving care.

Volume 2 (second edition 2018) contains photographs and details of 501 more ex-working narrow boats. There are also updates on some of the boats that appeared in Volume 1 – repaints, better photos, etc. Together, the two volumes contain photos of almost all of the nearly 1000 historic working narrow boats that the authors know have survived. The Index lists all the boats in both volumes.

Most of the photographs were taken by David Williams, who was brought up by the Shropshire Union Canal in Cheshire, in many travels around the country from 2008 – 2018. Each photograph is accompanied by brief notes on the boat by Peter Silvester, who has been involved with canals for over fifty years.