Maintenance boats

A pair of maintenance boats built for duties on the Ashton, Peak Forest and Macclesfield Canals. Maria was built by Jinks at Marple in 1915 at a cost of £155. It replaced another boat of the same name built at the same yard for the Buxton Lime Company.

Joel was originally built as a horse boat for the Buxton Lime Company in 1918. Sold out of service to the London and North Eastern Railway Company in 1926 she was subsequently rebuilt in 1929 as a motor boat fitted with a Kelvin 9HP petrol engine. This was the first motor boat in the maintenance fleet and always betrayed its' origins as a horse boat through the short, low horse boat style cabin cum engineroom with no gunwhales and the long rear deck and consequent long tiller. By 1946 the boat was in need of rebuilding and it was replaced by a new motor boat built at Gorton. It entered service in British Waterways colours in August 1948, retaining the fleet number 9. It may well be that a number of parts from the original boat were incorporated in the new Joel and that for accountancy purposes it was actually classed as a rebuild rather than a new boat. The boatbuilder at Gorton at this time, one Tommy Challinor, is said to have lacked the confidence to build a new boat from scratch and consequently always rebuilt or modified existing boats so they were like the aged broom that had 3 handles and 4 heads. Powered by a new 15hp twin cylinder Kelvin petrol/paraffin engine this was a fast boat which served until the Ashton canal became derelict in the early 1960's.

Both boats were abandoned on the Ashton Canal by the early 1970s but were rescued by enthusiasts who formed the Ashton Packet Boat Company and undertook extensivel rebuilds. They continue to keep these rare wooden narrowboats in good order.