NWM Easter Boat Gathering
Canal boats on their way to the national Waterways Museum's Easter Boat Gathering.
Tags: Tom Rolt Centenary Celebration
A celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Tom Rolt. Father of the Inland Waterways Association. Vintage car and heritage train enthusiast.
Born 1910 in Eaton Road, Chester, Lionel Thomas Caswell Rolt trained as a mechanical engineer. He held an apprenticeship with Kerr Stuart's locomotive works in Stoke on Trent, where his uncle was chief development engineer.
Taylor's Boatyard, Chester
Located on Tower Wharf, Chester, at the opposite end to popular dinking establishment, Telford's Wharehouse, is the grade 2 listed Taylors Boatyard. A curiosity, seen from the opposite bank of the Shropshire Union Canal. Beneath it's girdered canopy is a cornucopia of boats and boating bits and pieces. For some time now this complex of buildings has been up for lease and Britsh Waterways have decided to renovate the buildings using sympathetic materials where appropriate. The proposed work is to take place over the next few years. This follows an attempt in 2008 to preserve the boatyard.
Working Canal Boats at Tower Wharf
On there way to Ellesmere Port's National Waterways Museum. A flotilla of working narrow boats made an overnight stop at Chester's Canal Basin, near Telford's Wharehouse. The prelude to a talk organised by the Chester Canal Heritage Trust. Celebrating the 100th anniversary of Chester man Tom Rolt, an engineer and writer who was one of the pioneers of leisure cruising on Britains inland waterways in the 1930's.
