The art of work and boats on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal

From work boats to work art

Today on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal there were a few sights to see. We passed a couple of working boats, both old and new.

Leeds and Liverpool short boat, Fly Boat RibbleRibble

The cargo boats or short boats built for the Leeds and Liverpool Canal were specialised boats. They evolved because of the limitations of the navigation. The canal was 4 feet deep and the locks were 60 feet long and 14 feet wide. With its steep climbs into the Lancashire hills, it could accommodate the Yorkshire "keels" but not the Mersey "flat" or the longer Midlands working boat. 

You may have noticed the lock dimensions above allow two narrowboats 7 feet by (maximum) 60 feet long (actually, those of 60 feet have to lock alone, diagonally!). It is no coincidence that Epiphany is 6ft 10 by 57 feet - she was designed to go anywhere, specifically with the Northern canals in mind!

The short boats of the Leeds and Liverpool have characteristic paintwork

as seen here on the bow of Ribblebow

Only a couple of the original wooden ones still survive. However there are more of the steel hulled ones around. We saw Ambush near Wigan on our way up.

So to the "new" working boat

The BW dredger had its hold full of rubbish - it is an essential working boat on our canals of today. Canals are no longer ditches and there is still a need to educate the general public that rubbish harms wildlife, fish and boats!

So to art - or more precisely art of a working manNavvy

This stone sculpture is on the wharf at Halsall Warehouse Bridge. It is called the "Halsall Navvy" and is by Thompson Dagnall. The Navvies were the men who dug out our canals by hand and with picks, shovels and wheelbarrows. We owe them a huge debt.

The sculpture was commissioned in 2004 by the West Lancs Canal Partnership and placed at the site of the first sod cut on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.

Thompson Dagnall also created the oak and steel "Crows Nest" on the Ribble Link, also the sadly defunct "Gauging the Ripple" that used to be at the top lock.

Nearby the Navvy is the Halsall Bench, a good place to contemplate history!Bench

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