Narrowboats and wide boats rediscovered at Harefield - the facts

[magnetman]

Thanks I will look that up,the link does not work I also tried cutting and pasting.

link works ok for me

[carlt]

link works ok for me

Me too but, if not, they're very Googlable.

[antarmike]

They would have been floated there before the banks were built up to facilitate operation of a dragline to extract more ballast.

Sinking's easy and cheap. Scrap value may have been rock bottom.

 

Derek

 

http://www.waterways.org.uk/learning/histo...boats__freight_

 

Mark refers to this.

 

I remember Harefield Flash as communicating with the cut. There were low places, amongst a row of trees where I actually concidered trying to get into the Flash. Certainly it would nave been possible to get directly into the flash from the cut a few years earlier.

Edited March 10, 2010 by antarmike

[Derek R.]

It's the bit you can't see from the cut Mike - they opened up the end to get them in, then backfilled it.

Awful lot of shrubbery grown up in the intervening years - HERE Compare that to Laurences aerial shot with the channel opened up - post No.20

 

There's a better shot from Bling maps, but you'd be hard pressed to make any kind of boat or hull out in any of them in that back water.

I think they're making it all up myself - wild goose chase for a bit of publicity . . . Is it April already?

 

Derek

[Laurence Hogg]

It's the bit you can't see from the cut Mike - they opened up the end to get them in, then backfilled it.

Awful lot of shrubbery grown up in the intervening years - HERE Compare that to Laurences aerial shot with the channel opened up - post No.20

 

There's a better shot from Bling maps, but you'd be hard pressed to make any kind of boat or hull out in any of them in that back water.

I think they're making it all up myself - wild goose chase for a bit of publicity . . . Is it April already?

 

Derek

Derek,

For Gods sake do you really think we are making this up?? Since last October Mark and myself have been researching this with the help of TWT and other enthusiasts who have put a lot of time and effort into the find.

You can see the boats on Google earth if you look carefully but only ones which are above water and you have to know where to look, sadly they arent painted brightly like the ones next door.

The evidence is there and will be shown in good detail in the forthcoming issues of Narrowboat and Waterway's World. Stop belittling what is a major historical re discovery which may eventually not only give us back a extinct boat type but also put 11 nice Joshers back where they should be.

[johnjo]

It's the bit you can't see from the cut Mike - they opened up the end to get them in, then backfilled it.

Awful lot of shrubbery grown up in the intervening years - HERE Compare that to Laurences aerial shot with the channel opened up - post No.20

 

There's a better shot from Bling maps, but you'd be hard pressed to make any kind of boat or hull out in any of them in that back water.

I think they're making it all up myself - wild goose chase for a bit of publicity . . . Is it April already?

 

Derek

 

They are there alright, I moor just across from them in Harefield marina, got several pics of them in January. To my totally untrained eye I would have thought a great deal of effort would be required to recover them. It would be nigh on impossible to get a crane or low loader in there because of all the trees. One or two have trees growing up through them, but loads of drawing could be made of their construction and I'm sure that with real enthusiasm some if not all could be recovered, but as I said, to the untrained eye what do I know.

[carlt]

To my totally untrained eye I would have thought a great deal of effort would be required to recover them.

Ian Riley pulled wooden boats, sunk by BW, out of the T&M Flashes using a landrover, capstan winch and grappling hook, in the early 80s.

 

There are many survivors of his endeavours, still afloat, around the system.

[Guest]

Ian Riley pulled wooden boats, sunk by BW, out of the T&M Flashes using a landrover, capstan winch and grappling hook, in the early 80s.

 

There are many survivors of his endeavours, still afloat, around the system.

Think I have heard about that before. Do you happen to know which boats were recovered Carl?

 

Ian Riley pulled wooden boats, sunk by BW, out of the T&M Flashes using a landrover, capstan winch and grappling hook, in the early 80s.

 

There are many survivors of his endeavours, still afloat, around the system.

Think I have heard about that before. Do you happen to know which boats were recovered Carl?

[Speedwheel]

For Gods sake do you really think we are making this up??

 

Get reeling Derek. You've caught one!

[carlt]

Think I have heard about that before. Do you happen to know which boats were recovered Carl?

Off the top of my head, not many but....Uxbridge motor Clee; Big Rickys Poplar and Starcross; Little Ricky Ariel; Knobstick Ivy......and my memory has faltered already. I'm sure more will come to me.

 

Was Electra a Flashes boat? It has the characteristic knackered top bends.

[Guest]

Off the top of my head, not many but....Uxbridge motor Clee; Big Rickys Poplar and Starcross; Little Ricky Ariel; Knobstick Ivy......and my memory has faltered already. I'm sure more will come to me.

Was Electra a Flashes boat? It has the characteristic knackered top bends.

Cheers carl

[Laurence Hogg]

Electra wasnt from the flashes, was Mattys "Maureen", Scotia came out with remains of Spain, Ivy and a little packet and a lot more...

[antarmike]

It's the bit you can't see from the cut Mike - they opened up the end to get them in, then backfilled it.

Awful lot of shrubbery grown up in the intervening years - HERE Compare that to Laurences aerial shot with the channel opened up - post No.20

 

There's a better shot from Bling maps, but you'd be hard pressed to make any kind of boat or hull out in any of them in that back water.

I think they're making it all up myself - wild goose chase for a bit of publicity . . . Is it April already?

 

Derek

In the seventies there was clear water between the GU and the boats in the flash, nothing was backfilled, you could have got a shallow draught boat to them from the cut. There were several places where there was no bank or anything. You could have rowed out to the hulks.

[pete harrison]

Off the top of my head, not many but....Uxbridge motor Clee; Big Rickys Poplar and Starcross; Little Ricky Ariel; Knobstick Ivy......and my memory has faltered already. I'm sure more will come to me.

 

Was Electra a Flashes boat? It has the characteristic knackered top bends.

 

The Large Ricky butty currently named STARCROSS (incorrectly identified by a previous owner) did not come out of the 'northern flashes'. I remember it in Birmingham during the late 1970's as ADVENTURER, later moving to Napton Brickworks when Peter Nichols was building new boats there and sold through Braunston Marina in about 1990. As far as I am aware the only Large Ricky butty recovered by Ian Riley was POPLAR, as mentioned by 'carlt', but I do not know how this boat was identified as such.

 

IVY was a wooden hulled former F.M.C. Ltd. forecabin butty - identified at the time by its B.C.N. gauge plate.

 

The Uxbridge motor BRILL was also recovered and later returned (stern end) and the motor SCOTIA also came out at the same time (2007 in the care of Roger Fuller per Ian Riley in a letter to me). Ian Riley also owns an unidentified Knobstick motor from the flashes but a Small Ricky butty that was claimed by some to be GLAXY (extremely unlikely in my opinion) was raised and later broken up by a B.W.B. dredger after sinking and slipping into the channel. An iron B.C.N. day boat can also be added to the list.

 

ELECTRA has a known history (to at least June 2001 - and yes I know where it is although I don't know who owns it) and was not salvaged from the 'northern flashes'.

[CanalWalker]

I had to be pessimistic but after seeing the historic boats at Ellesmere Port boat museum at the weekend I dont hold out much hope for restoring boats that have been sunk and buried for decades.

[Radiomariner]

I dont suppose the "Que Sera Sera" is there?

[pete harrison]

I was aware of these boats in the 1970s when I lived at Uxbridge - A friend and I had a madcap schemme to salvage them and perhaps if we'd known some were composite we would have done. Some had been buried - I remember a row of butty elums sticking out of the ground.

 

I believe Alan Brown made a map showing their various positions - Pete Harrison should have this information.

 

There is at least one other interesting boat in the actual marina lake - the tug Panama which I believe was a wide tug like Buffalo - you can just see (or could) its iron engine room poking above water. The wooden motor Rodney also exists as a landing stage.

 

But there are enough derelict working boats around the system awaiting funds or enthusiasm to restore - a wait that may for many go on for ever -so I hope these boats can be left to moulder gently away.

 

 

Paul

 

I am lead to believe that it was Herbert Dunkley who produced a map of the boats scuttled at Harefield but I did not find this amongst his 'collection' at The Waterways Trust Archive, Gloucester when I went through it some years ago, but thats not to say its not there.

[Laurence Hogg]

I had to be pessimistic but after seeing the historic boats at Ellesmere Port boat museum at the weekend I dont hold out much hope for restoring boats that have been sunk and buried for decades.

Properly Silently conserved boats might give you a big suprise - been there seen it, dont worry!

[antarmike]

Properly Silently conserved boats might give you a big suprise - been there seen it, dont worry!

I have an old broom, its had four new handles and five heads......

 

I can't believe that if these boats could be recued they would be anything but patterns for a new build....

[Derek R.]

Get reeling Derek. You've caught one!

 

Get the scales out!

 

Laurence, lighten up. I just hope the "Public awareness" you have brought about does no harm to either the area or its inhabitants.

 

Derek Reynolds

[carlt]

I have an old broom, its had four new handles and five heads......

 

I can't believe that if these boats could be recued they would be anything but patterns for a new build....

With regard to the wooden boats (Rust is for roads) they are at a disadvantage to those dumped in the Northern Flashes because they have not been preserved in a salt water environment but, if the bulk of the wooden framing survives, then a meaningful replica/rebuild could be created, in the right hands.

 

To me the "is it a renovation/rebuild/replica" argument is irrelevant, or at least, in my mind, is settled. I would like to see an accurate example of every significant boat type that has contributed to our history preserved, original or not.

 

If knees and frames are replanked, btw, then one major part of "the broom" remains original.

[alan_fincher]

I dont suppose the "Que Sera Sera" is there?

We don't talk about it, OK

 

Far more chance of the worst of these boats being restored to full carrying trim than QSS turning up though, methinks!

[Hairy-Neil]

I have an old broom, its had four new handles and five heads......

 

I can't believe that if these boats could be recued they would be anything but patterns for a new build....

 

As with the 'Ivy', salvaged from the T&M flashes.

 

I accept though that, although all the wood was renewed, the boat was rebuilt a plank at a time rather than a replica built along side the original.

[Laurence Hogg]

In the seventies there was clear water between the GU and the boats in the flash, nothing was backfilled, you could have got a shallow draught boat to them from the cut. There were several places where there was no bank or anything. You could have rowed out to the hulks.

All due respect but you are not talking about the same pit. The pit with the boats is seperated from the canal BEHIND what is now Harefield marina, it connected with the southern lake known as harefield 2 at one tim but the connection with boyers Pit (Harefiled marina) was a temporary one.

[Hairy-Neil]

If knees and frames are replanked, btw, then one major part of "the broom" remains original.

 

Raymond?