Horse-drawn boat - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Not to be confused with the modern towboat
Towboat
Not to be confused with the historic boat type with the same name, also called horse-drawn boat.A towboat is a boat designed for pushing barges or car floats. Towboats are characterized by a square bow with steel knees for pushing and powerful engines...

.

A horse-drawn boat or tow-boat is a historic boat

Boat

A boat is a watercraft of any size designed to float or plane, to provide passage across water. Usually this water will be inland or in protected coastal areas. However, boats such as the whaleboat were designed to be operated from a ship in an offshore environment. In naval terms, a boat is a...

operating on a canal

Canal

Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...

, pulled by a horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

walking on a special road

Road

A road is a thoroughfare, route, or way on land between two places, which typically has been paved or otherwise improved to allow travel by some conveyance, including a horse, cart, or motor vehicle. Roads consist of one, or sometimes two, roadways each with one or more lanes and also any...

along the canal, the towpath

Towpath

A towpath is a road or trail on the bank of a river, canal, or other inland waterway. The purpose of a towpath is to allow a land vehicle, beasts of burden, or a team of human pullers to tow a boat, often a barge...

United Kingdom

The Romans are known to have used mules to haul boats on their waterways in the UK. Boat horses were the prime movers of the Industrial Revolution

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...

, and they remained at work until the middle of the 20th century. A horse, towing a boat with a rope from the towpath

Towpath

, could pull fifty times as much cargo

Cargo

Cargo is goods or produce transported, generally for commercial gain, by ship, aircraft, train, van or truck. In modern times, containers are used in most intermodal long-haul cargo transport.-Marine:...

as it could pull in a cart

Cart

A cart is a vehicle designed for transport, using two wheels and normally pulled by one or a pair of draught animals. A handcart is pulled or pushed by one or more people...

or wagon

Wagon

A wagon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals; it was formerly often called a wain, and if low and sideless may be called a dray, trolley or float....

on roads. In the early days of the Canal Age, from about 1740, all boats and barges were towed by horse

Horse

, mule

Mule

A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. Horses and donkeys are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes. Of the two F1 hybrids between these two species, a mule is easier to obtain than a hinny...

, hinny

Hinny

A hinny is a domestic equine hybrid that is the offspring of a male horse and a female donkey . It is similar to the more common mule, which is the product of a female horse and a male donkey....

, pony

Pony

A pony is a small horse . Depending on context, a pony may be a horse that is under an approximate or exact height at the withers, or a small horse with a specific conformation and temperament. There are many different breeds...

or sometimes a pair of donkey

Donkey

The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E...

s. Many of the surviving buildings and structures had been designed with horse power in mind. Horse drawn boats were used well into the 1960s on UK canals for commercial transport, and are still used today by passenger trip boats and other pleasure traffic.

The Horseboating Society

Horseboating Society

The Horseboating Society is a national society, with the primary aim being the preservation and promotion of Horseboating on the canals of Great Britain...

has the primary aims of preserving and promoting Horseboating on the canals of the United Kingdom

Canals of the United Kingdom

The canals of the United Kingdom are a major part of the network of inland waterways in the United Kingdom. They have a colourful history, from use for irrigation and transport, through becoming the focus of the Industrial Revolution, to today's role for recreational boating...

. There are horseboat operators at Foxton

Foxton, Leicestershire

thumb|Foxton parish churchFoxton is a village in Leicestershire, England, to the north-west of Market Harborough. It is on the Grand Union Canal and is the site of the Foxton Locks and Foxton Inclined Plane.-External links:****...

, Godalming

Godalming

Godalming is a town and civil parish in the Waverley district of the county of Surrey, England, south of Guildford. It is built on the banks of the River Wey and is a prosperous part of the London commuter belt. Godalming shares a three-way twinning arrangement with the towns of Joigny in France...

, Tiverton, Ashton-under-Lyne

Ashton-under-Lyne

Ashton-under-Lyne is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside, Greater Manchester, England. Historically a part of Lancashire, it lies on the north bank of the River Tame, on undulating land at the foothills of the Pennines...

, Newbury

Newbury, Berkshire

Newbury is a civil parish and the principal town in the west of the county of Berkshire in England. It is situated on the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal, and has a town centre containing many 17th century buildings. Newbury is best known for its racecourse and the adjoining former USAF...

and Llangollen

Llangollen

Llangollen is a small town and community in Denbighshire, north-east Wales, situated on the River Dee and on the edge of the Berwyn mountains. It has a population of 3,412.-History:...

NB Maria

Maria is Britain's oldest surviving wooden narrowboat

Narrowboat

A narrowboat or narrow boat is a boat of a distinctive design, made to fit the narrow canals of Great Britain.In the context of British Inland Waterways, "narrow boat" refers to the original working boats built in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries for carrying goods on the narrow canals...

, built in 1854 by Jinks Boatyard in Marple

Marple, Greater Manchester

Marple is a small town within the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the River Goyt southeast of Stockport.Historically part of Cheshire, Marple has a population of 23,480 .-Toponymy:...

, and was never converted to have an engine. From 1854 to 1897, Maria was used to carry railway track ballast

Track ballast

Track ballast forms the trackbed upon which railway sleepers or railroad ties are laid. It is packed between, below, and around the ties. It is used to facilitate drainage of water, to distribute the load from the railroad ties, and also to keep down vegetation that might interfere with the track...

for the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway

Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway

The Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway was formed by amalgamation in 1847. The MS&LR changed its name to the Great Central Railway in 1897 in anticipation of the opening in 1899 of its London Extension.-Origin:...

. She was then used as a maintenance boat until 1962, lay abandoned for nine years until being salvaged in 1972 and converted to a passenger boat in 1978. In 2000 she was restored to near original operating condition.

Maria is currently owned by Ashton Packet Boat Company. She is sometimes loaned to the Horseboating Society

Horseboating Society

The Horseboating Society is a national society, with the primary aim being the preservation and promotion of Horseboating on the canals of Great Britain...

and has taken part in several of their events, including British Waterways' "Coal and Cotton" event, celebrating the Leeds and Liverpool Canal's history of transporting coal from Leeds

Leeds

Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...

and Wigan

Wigan

Wigan is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Douglas, south-west of Bolton, north of Warrington and west-northwest of Manchester. Wigan is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its administrative centre. The town of Wigan had a total...

to Liverpool, and taking cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

from Liverpool docks

Dock (maritime)

A dock is a human-made structure or group of structures involved in the handling of boats or ships, usually on or close to a shore.However, the exact meaning varies among different variants of the English language...

to Leeds

Leeds

.

In 2006 she was the first boat to have been legged

Legging (canals)

Legging is a method of moving a boat through a canal tunnel or adit containing water.-Legging in canal tunnels:Early canal tunnels were built without a towpath as this would require a much larger bore, and hence cost more to build. Prior to the introduction of motorised boats, legging was one of...

through Standedge Tunnel in 60 years. A UK Government minister and a local Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

took turns at legging Maria through the highest, longest, and deepest canal tunnel in the UK.

External links

http://www.canaljunction.com/craft/horsedrawn1.htm
http://www.horsedrawnboats.co.uk/
The Horseboating Society
Kennet Horse Boat Company

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

United Kingdom

NB Maria

See also

External links