Man v. Can Series 21. ‘Rightness’

May 25, 2013 by Nick Holt

On and off throughout this lingering Winter and chilly Spring I’ve returned to the Can. I’ve enjoyed the return. And the challenges and frustrations it’s offered. It’s gone through many variations and evolutions as I’ve struggled to get it to look more coherent/less ‘bitty and above all to look ‘right’. Right-ness is so important, the Cans that work for me, regardless of the fluency of the painting are they ones that look balanced and complete, the ones that look just […]

Categories: Painted Ware

‘The Story of a Boat’ Series: Iron Boat Dock

May 24, 2013 by Nick Holt

In the last post I mentioned that one of the next steps on my journey of discovery was to find out more about the Iron Boat Dock where BCN18686 was built in 1903. It’s proved to have been a really productive week, thanks again to the BCN experts on the Canal World Forum who’ve so freely shared their knowledge, and provided new leads. As a result of their advice, and with the help of a couple of reproductions of the […]

Categories: History of Eileen

2013 Rickmansworth Waterways Festival 3. The Final Instalment – Magnificant Cans

May 23, 2013 by Nick Holt

I can’t leave the ‘Ricky’ behind without sharing some of the wonderful painted ware that was on show on a wide range of boats. Professional and amateur efforts creating a colourful celebration of, what is for me, a wonderful art form.  

Categories: London Waterways, Painted Ware, RalliesGatheringsEtc

2013 Rickmansworth Waterway Festival 2. Delighting in Details

May 22, 2013 by Nick Holt

In the hustle-bustle and general animation of visiting a Festival like the ‘Ricky’, I tend to experience a kind of ‘global contentment’, and I’m happy just to drift through the crowds, chat with our kids and generally enjoy the colours, sights and sounds in a mildly unfocused kind of way. Often the hidden gems of the day are only revealed in retrospect, when I look back through the photographs I’ve taken in a more focused and attentive way. In many […]

Categories: 'inside' inlanding, London Waterways, Painted Ware, RalliesGatheringsEtc

Reykjavik – colourful corrugated iron

May 21, 2013 by Nick Holt

During the mid 19th C corrugated iron went universal, a construction material exported across the world. In Iceland, corrugated galvanized iron arrived in the 1860s; according to Adam Moremont and Simon Holloway in Corrugated Iron: Building on the Frontier: Ships travelling north from Britain to buy sheep would carry cargoes of corrugated iron to sell in Reykjavik, where it quickly became clear that the material was well suited to the isolated volcanic island with limited local construction materials. Icelandic architectural vernacular […]

Categories: Iron, Metal, Tin

Horse Boating on the BCN: Refuse and Salvage

May 20, 2013 by Nick Holt

In researching the photograph above I was delighted to find an extended essay ‘Ow Things Was’ written by Malcolm ‘Blossom’ Edge, in one chapter he describes his early encounters with the BCN and in this extract his meeting Geoff Bennett and Alan ‘Caggy’ Stevens in the early 1960′s: In September 1963 […] we went down to Camp Hill locks [to] see Birmingham Corporation Salvage Departments boats. See them we did, or should I say smell them! At Ocker Hill my friend […]

Categories: BCN Day Boats

Silent Sunday XLI

May 19, 2013 by Nick Holt

Categories: Silent Sunday

2013 Rickmansworth Waterway Festival 1. A Grand Time at ‘the Ricky’

May 18, 2013 by Nick Holt

The third weekend in May is the traditional time for the Rickmansworth Waterways Trust’s Rickmansworth Festival. The Festival is centred around Watersmeeting, where the River Colne meets Batchworth Locks and the southern Grand Union Canal, and where the Aquadome, formed by the Batchworth, Bury and Stocker’s Lakes, stands. It’s a bustling, mildly beery, melting pot of an event with working boats and live-aboards rubbing shoulders with a traditional fairground; craft and food stalls; an environmental fair, canal trips and educational […]

Categories: London Waterways, RalliesGatheringsEtc

‘The Story of a Boat’ Series: BCN Gauging

May 17, 2013 by Nick Holt

In trying to clarify the early life of a day boat one of the most valuable sources are the Birmingham Canal Navigation Gauging Tables or Registers. There are a number of transcriptions of the registers in existence, either held in public collections such as the Waterways Archive at Ellesmere Port, or created by diligent independent researchers, experts in the history of the BCN. In the last couple of weeks the Canal World’s History & Heritage forum pages have enabled me […]

Categories: History of Eileen

Back Cabin Daydreaming

May 16, 2013 by Nick Holt

A poised Summer dreamscape. Blue-grey mountains silhouetted against sun-stained clouds; an ultrmarine lake (or sea?), the bright dots of sailing boats and the merest shimmering of a town on the far shore. A yellow and red balloon crosses the sky a palimpsest of the setting sun. In the foreground a river flows. A hump-backed bridge crosses the river and a track leads towards a crenelated and many towered castle. A silent landscape, the held breath moment, before a story begins… […]

Categories: 'inside' inlanding, Eileen, Painted Ware