Shropshire fly boat "Saturn"

[andybarton]

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This is the boat that I wanted to see over the weekend. This is the last survivor of an amazing fleet of these boats and it was a delight to chat with the two custodians on Saturday morning.

In the days before decent road transport, fly boats like Saturn would travel from rural Cheshire, a big milk and cheese producing county in the NW of England, to cities such as Manchester and even Birmingham. Working 24 hours a day, a crew of three men would change horses every few hours, reaching Birmingham in two days, a distance of about 100 miles.

These boats had priority over all other traffic on the canal, jumping queues for locks as required and were purpose built to cut through the water as easily as possible.

I can only imagine what it must have been like guiding a horse on a muddy towpath, with no lights, in the winter, in the middle of a wet and windy night, hauling 16 tonnes of cheese.

 

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[Boojay]

Nice image of Saturn.. I see her regularly in Ellesmere, a local walk place for me.

I think Peaky Blinders has given the Canals a bit of a boost.

 

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[andybarton]

As if they needed any...

There are more boats on the canal network today than ever before. When we were on the Kennet and Avon last month, visitor moorings were very hard to find

[stuny]

Ver nice