Gathering of Historic Working Boats

The Transport Festival is coming up on Sunday, but remember, over the whole of this weekend it's also the seventh annual Gathering of Historic Working Boats at Audlem tomorrow, Saturday 25th July and Sunday 26th July.

Amazingly, it was already fully booked six months ago!

The Gathering, organised by Peter and Chris Silvester at Audlem Mill, has this year 42 boats booked in. They date from the 1880s right up to 1960, and they will be coming from across the Midlands and North of England.

Several of the boats will be new to this event, including motor boat "Mountbatten" and butty "Jellicoe", which were amongst the last few working boats built for British Waterways. These boats will soon be based on the Llangollen Canal, not so far away.

As in previous years, the historic boats will be moored from the Shropshire Street road bridge right down to the bottom lock, no. 15 – and a few may be moored beyond.

The Audlem event is now recognised as one of the major historic boat gatherings in the national calendar – and it is one of the few in the north.

Boat owners trying to book have been on a reserve list, in case of any cancellations. The pdf file below the photo lists all the boats booked in for this year's event.

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