One Street - Gathering

Today sees the start of the Lymm Festival. As part of that there will be a festival of transport on Saturday and Sunday. There will be many traditional working boats on the canal which runs through the heart of the village.

A number of boats have already started to gather. I was invited on board the Gifford, a butty boat which is cared for by volunteers from the Boat Museum Society. Built in 1926 it was used mainly as a tar carrier and then latterly as a fuel oil and gas oil carrier from the Shell refinery at Stanlow, Ellesmere Port. It was horse drawn until the early 1940s and finished its working life in 1963.

I was able to go into the very small cabin at the back of the boat that would have been home to the boatman and his family. Wouldn't have been the best place to live with those cargoes on the other side of the bulkhead.

You can see the one photo of the cabin interior that I managed to take along with a few others.