Here’s a lovely film, spotted by twitter friend and historian Kris Davies and posted on Twitter last night. It’s a documentary film covering a the journey of a cargo load by narrowboat on the Grand Union Canal from London to Birmingham in the 1930s.
This is a wonderful illustration of how canal life was for the cargo carriers of the day and includes some incredible views of places anyone familiar with canals of the UK will recognise.
I thank Kris for finding this film – from the Huntley film archive – and suggest anyone who likes this check out some of their other remarkable period films.
Anyone any idea which wharf this is in Birmingham, please?
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A remarkable piece of film . . . . .
Wonderful, many thanks. My grandfather was a stevedore on the Thames in the 1920s – 1950s, mainly (I think) at St Catherine’s dock, so not the dock shown here, but it’s great to see the men at work. Also, it must be quite a surprise to many to see narrow boats in their fully-laden state, gunwales so close to the water. We’ve grown so accustomed to seeing such boats only as pleasure cruisers and sitting high.
Tremendous, many thanks.
Great stuff, thanks.
I think the photo is near to the stop lock by the banana warehouse, Fazeley Street. There is a warehouse that was owned by Fellow Clayton and Morton that had a small canal arm.
This http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNxylzZHKkg might be of interest too. Much else on Youtube on canals past and present.
This film is owned and is copyright of British Waterways, now the Canal and river trust. The film is not part of the Huntley archive and is currently licennsed to one distributor. Huntley archive have been advised and also C&RT.