The Pen Makers Boat: #485 Now Sold

NB Saturn Oak and Gun Metal Ballpoint Twist Pen

(£2.50 from the sale of this pen will be gifted to The Shropshire Union Fly-Boat Restoration Society, the Custodians of NB Saturn)

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 is one of the large bow mainframes from the Shropshire Fly Boat Saturn. The days of the fly-boats began with the success of the Bridgewater and Trent & Mersey canals in the 1770’s. Up until the heyday of the fly boats cargos had sedately plodded up the towing paths (Haling Way’s in them thar days) at three miles per hour or so but the new Fly Boats with teams of four men and two horses regularly galloped their loads of perishable goods at ten miles per hour.

Built in 1906 for the Shropshire Union Canal Carrying Co. at Tower Wharf, Chester, Saturn was used for the fast carriage of cheese from the producing towns of Cheshire and Shropshire to the major markets such as Manchester.

Saturn is the last horse-drawn Shropshire Union Canal Fly-boat in the World – originally built to travel non-stop, day and night. Over 100 years old, she has been fully restored to her former glory; not only to preserve her for posterity but to educate present and future generations about our waterways, narrowboats and horse-boating.

Our mooring a mile or so south of Knowle was idyllic, helped of course by beautiful spring sunshine. Not quite enough sun to run the lathe via the solar panels but we weren't too far off. Time to move on though up the hill towards the outskirts of Birmingham.

Knowle locks was the first order of the day though. These are the most northern wide locks that connects directly to the southern canals and rivers. If you have a wide beam (over 7ft 1in) boat you are really restricted to south of here or north of Manchester with no practical way of navigating between the two.

Knowle locks were one of the last to be instated on the canal system alongside the widening program of the Hatton flight to Warwick in the 1930's. As a result modern building methods were used, no craftsmen dressing local stone or pretty lock sides, just what seemed like acres of steep sided and rather bland concrete. Not that nice at all, luckily there are only five of these locks that replaced six narrow ones. I'm not sure that we'll come back this way in a hurry as there are far prettier routes.

Being new waters to us we didn't quite know what to expect up this way but it's common boater knowledge that the last reasonably safe and pleasant mooring spot this side of Birmingham was the rather posh sounding Catherine-de-Barnes. We duly did as we were advised and moored on the village visitor moorings. After taking Dudley for a good walk around some local fields (and noted some recently felled ash - we had two days coal left) we went to peruse the village. Well that didn't take long, a church, a chain pub and a spar convenience shop, oh and a very busy road.

We'd pretty well done Catherine-de-Barnes by early morning and with no more urgent pen turning to do we moved a mile or so further on to collect some of the felled ash tree and stop over night before continuing down through Camp Hill locks and Bordesley Junction and further overnight stops at Star City and Minworth.

After a few days of short hops we had a lovely warm day to tackle our last locks for a little while down from Curdworth to Kingsbury Water Park a few miles before Fazeley Junction and Tamworth. It's always a favourite stop-off of ours here, great for dog walking and such a peaceful location at least for a few more years until HS2 smashes its way right through the middle of this beauty spot.

Pen #485 was turned at Fazeley Junction on Thursday 31st March