Tag Archives: National Waterways Museum

Sunday August 14th sees the Horses at Work and War event at the National Waterways Museum, Ellesmere Port.
Developed by the Horseboating Society and the Boat Museum Society, the event shows horses involved in horseboating and other areas of work, making a great day out for visitors. We hope that some of our supporters are able to attend and enjoy the day.
To tie in with WW1 commemorations, the annual Horses at Work event this year has some activities based around that time period – primarily because nearly all canal boats were horse-drawn in Britain in WW1. Some vessels were horse-drawn in France and Belgium, but most were pulled by steam tugs on larger inland waterways. Horse-drawn boats on the home front carried foodstuffs, ammunition, and even soldiers.
Sue Day and Nigel Dix will take 3 horses: Bonny as a boathorse, Castle as a packhorse, and Bilbo as a WW1 cavalry horse. Kate Vigurs will provide 4 horse-based shows about WW1. Other horses will provide carriage rides. The farrier will be in attendance.
Come along if you can. There are always many interesting exhibits at the museum, both indoors and outdoors. See horseboat Ilkeston, for example, and look around her cabin.
Further details can be found on the website of the National Waterways Museum, Ellesmere Port.
The event is between 10.00 am and 5.00 pm.

The Horses at Work event day held at the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port on Sunday Aug 11 was enjoyed by many.

John Inch, the manager, had advertised it on Facebook with an earlier photo of Bilbo, maybe taken in 2011. He wrote:

The event day is organised with the help of HBS members Barbara and Ken Catford and other HBS or Boat Museum Society members. Like last year, we had several young crew ( age 17,18) working with older crew to make up 2 crews for the morning or afternoon. Good crowds attended the harnessing and horseboating demos. Bonny enjoyed her outing with the 2 short trips to the winding hole and back. At age 21, she is in semi-retirement now, and just does short trips. A far cry from her Manchester to London journey in 2000.

Find out more about activities at the National Waterways Museum here.

Photo: National Waterways Museum