#337

NOW SOLD

NB Birchills Oak and 24ct Gold Plated Ballpoint Twist Pen

(25% of the selling price will be gifted to The Black Country Living Museum, the custodians of NB Birchills) 

EUROPEAN OAK - Quercus robur

Usually straight-grained, the heartwood of European Oak varies in colour from light tan to brown. Quarter-sawn pieces show attractive flame figuring. The wood is fairly hard, heavy and dense, clean but with the occasional knot. European Oak is a beautiful timber and with an oil finish, the grain will turn a deep golden brown.

This particular piece of oak (probably English rather than European) is just a little bit special though. It comes from the rear cabin side gunwales of Narrowboat Birchills. I was given a few off cuts by the superb craftsmen who were carrying out a little light refurbishment to this historic boat, in fact the guys had cut the whole back cabin off!

Birchills is an historic, ‘Joey’ boat with a small day cabin, built in 1953 by Ernest Thomas of Walsall, ‘Birchills’ it is one of the last wooden day boats made and was used to carry coal to Wolverhampton Power Station. This boat is double-ended and the mast and rudder could be changed from one end to the other. This enabled its use in narrow canals or basins where there was no room to turn the boat around.

The rotten parts of these rebuilt boats are usually used to stoke the fires that steam the new planks for bending to the hulls shape so half a day later this flaky gunwale would have been burned. I wasn't sure how deep the rot would have gone and how deep I would have to delve into this piece to find stable wood. The pens I make from historic boat materials have been thoroughly tested by me to make sure that they will give pleasurable daily use.

That old flaky gunwale went on to make a few very nice pens and I was lucky enough to be given some more wood by Ade at A P Boat Building in Alvecote. This time a piece that appears to be from the old red cabin hatch surround.

Having left Nantwich we arrived at one of our favourite moorings not only on the Shropshire union canal but on all of the inland waterways that we have travelled to date. This rural canal itself is a favourite of many boaters, not for us though. It’s one of the newer ones (at least this part is - the Chester to River Dee part is about 70 years older) the canal from Nantwich to Autherley Junction (near Wolverhampton) received its Act of Parliament in 1826 but was not completed until 1835. 

As a result doesn’t have many stretches that follow contours but are of the ‘cut and embankment’ type which was designed to get boats moving much faster in a straight line from A to B. Miles of straight canal, whilst still being amazing that the navvies built by hand, are a bit boring at 3mph. After passing Overwater Marina (on its long straight stretch) the canal scours the hillside before rising through the pretty village of Aldlem up fifteen locks towards open countryside and Market Drayton. Our mooring for a few days had wonderful open views across farmland and lakes to the east. Pen #333 was made on the 29th June 2015 just below the bottom lock of the Audlem flight.