Martha Alice

I was given this photograph recently, it shows a horse boat called Martha Alice passing under a bridge.

The Boat
The boat appears to belong to Jackson & Co of Liverpool from what I can make out on the cover sheets over the cargo. The boat looks to be wooden, and is horse drawn but sadly the horse is hidden by the bridge. The last horse boat was Parbold in 1960, so this photo must be before then. 1940s or 50s I would guess. The boat is carrying a cargo, low in the water and has its covers on. The covers may mean the cargo has to be kept dry so may be animal feed or corn rather than coal.

The Bridge
The bridge is a typical Leeds & Liverpool Canal bridge. One of the original stones ones. These are found between Liverpool and Wigan. It has the white painted arch and the mark showing the centre of the water channel. The bridge doesn't have the course of stone work at road level that most bridges of this type have. The stonework suggests the bridge has been rebuilt and repaired a few times. It has metal braces.
 By the towpath is the wooden roller which would have protected the stonework from being worn by the tow ropes. Through the bridge the canal bends around to the right.

Bridge #24 at Halsall Cutting, Lancashire

Old Photographs from eBay

I buy things on eBay. Mostly crap I don't need or even want that much. Most recently I had terrible trouble getting a hip flask I didnt really want from Royal Mail. I have it now, its fine. It has the crest of the Fleet Air Arm on it. I am not now nor have I ever been in the Fleet Air Arm. My Grandad was though. I also buy canal related things. If there was a Venn Diagram of the 'Crap I Buy' and the 'Canal Stuff I Buy', there would be considerable cross over. 

Mostly I buy postcards, they are generally not crap. At least I don't think so. Proper postcard collectors may not approve of some of them. But who is to say what an interesting postcard is? I also buy paperwork, bills, Acts of Parliament. Stuff like that. Some of it a couple of hundred years old. It all ends up in the same folder, along with Ice Lolly wrappers from the days when we eagerly anticipated the release of the Phantom Menace. 

The latest purchase was a collection of photographs from the 1970's showing the Basingstoke Canal, Birmingham Canal Navigations and the Stroudwater Canal. The Basingstoke and Stroudwater canals were both derelict in the 1970's. The photos are of ruined locks and empty reed filled canals. 

The BCN ones show a Butty (an engineless boat pulled by a boat with an engine) called Hyades. Hyades was built in 1935 and is still around today. Click here to see what she looks like now. While googling her name I found this account of someone who had worked on her back in the day: A lads eye view of the canals

Hyades 

The woman in the photograph appears in a couple of the BCN ones. I had the same thing photographing the canal in Burnley. Some poor old dear was going about her business walking on the towpath and inadvertently got became a feature in my photos. You don't expect paparazzi on the towpath.  

Here are the rest of the photographs, I haven't split them into individual photos after scanning for two very sound reasons, one: I liked the way they looked together and two: I couldn't quite be arsed (I dont get paid for this you know!) 

Here they are: http://www.towpathtreks.co.uk/About/old_canal_photographs.html#8 Hopefully I can add some more information to the photos when the good people at Canal World come up with the goods. 

Old Canal Photographs

Bank Hall Colliery

Burnley Depot

Unloading coal at Whitebirk Power Station

the Lancaster Canal

more old photographs of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal and the Lancaster Canal can be seen here:
http://www.towpathtreks.co.uk/About/old_canal_photographs.html

Photographs from the Archives

In the archives at work we found boxes of papes and photographs belonging to the late Dr Dennis Chapman. There are hundreds of photographs of Scandinavian fishing boats and various ports and harbour around the world. Some of the prints are from photos taken a 100 years ago. Among the photos there are some of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal taken in the 1960's. The photos are of the canal in Shipley, including some of a lock on the Bradford Canal. The photos include a couple of ex-working boats.
There are also some of the Chester Canal and Kennet and Avon Canal in the 1950's.
I hope to scan these and put them on the new towpathtreks site at some point.