Springer canal boats from Market Harborough

Peter Watts has an article on Waterfront, the website of the Canal & River Trust, about Springer canal boats, which were built here in Market Harborough.

They were very much at the bargain end of the market, but Peter writes:

Belying their reputation, Springer boats also appear to be impressively hard-wearing with thousands still in use despite the fact the company closed down in the mid-1990s. 

And Springer boats aren’t just confined to the English waterways – in 1990, the boatyard built the Typhoo Atlantic Challenger, a 37-foot craft shaped like a bottle that crossed the Atlantic from New York to Falmouth. 

Not bad for a company whose first boats were made from a scrapped gasometer.

For more about Springer boats, see my post on Mill Hill and the canal basin, Market Harborough, in the 1970s.

There you will find a video one of them being built, transported to the town's canal basin and then fitted out and decorated.

And for more than that, consult Bob Hakewill's Boatbuilders of Market Harborough, which is a recondite volume even for my bookshelves.