Book Review – January 2023

Not only have these waterways introduced me to the peasant and the craftsman, but they have recaptured for me that sense of place which swift transport, standardisation and ever more centralised urban government are doing their best to destroy.

I found myself drawn to L.T.C. Rolt’s Narrow Boat because, while researching something I am currently writing about Chester, I read in several places that Rolt is regarded as one of the city’s most famous sons. Narrow Boat is a classic memoir of a journey he and Angela Rolt took along the canals of England during 1939 and 1940. The book was first published in 1944, at a time when the canals were becoming neglected and forgotten due to competition for trade by road and rail transport.

Narrow Boat tells the story of how Tom and Angela Rolt refurbished an old narrowboat called Cressy, which they had purchased for just £40. They spent several winter months renovating the boat, fitting it with a tiny kitchen, a coal stove, and all the necessary equipment needed for a life on the canals. With Cressy in working order, the couple embarked on a journey that would take them on a voyage of exploration across the canals of England.

The journey starts in Banbury and takes the Rolts through the heart of the country, navigating across the East Midlands, Cheshire and through the West Midlands back to Oxfordshire. Later journeys, after the period covered by Narrow Boat, took them all over England.

Along the way, the Rolts meet many colourful characters, from other boaters and fishermen to canal workers and lock keepers. Rolt is a skilled storyteller, and his writing transports readers back to a time when the pace of life was slower and simpler, and the canals were a way of life for many people. As a qualified engineer, Rolt has particular insight into how the canal system was developed.  He explains the engineering behind the locks and how they work, the history of the canals, and the towns and villages that they pass through. He also describes the wildlife that he sees, from herons and kingfishers to water voles and otters. The book is illustrated with Rolt’s own drawings, which adds to its charm. This anniversary edition also features a series of evocative photographs by Angela Rolt.

But Rolt also displays his downright grumpiness with the modern world at every turn. Those of us who support the environmental cause can sympathise with his objection to polluting factories and urban sprawl but, oddly, he rails against the supposed evils of the cinema too. The Campaign for Real Ale would also be surprised to learn that it was the Victorians who ruined the English pub. Less amusing, however, is some of the archaic language Rolt casually uses when referring to race and religion, terms which most modern readers will find unacceptable.

Narrow Boat is, nonetheless, an engaging and informative book, a satisfying mix of travel writing and social history. It describes a world, the working canals of England, that is now all but gone. But its importance goes beyond the book itself. Narrow Boat created a deluge of interest in England’s canals and led directly to the creation of the Inland Waterways Association (IWA) in 1946. Having been replaced by rail and later by road as the primary network for commercial transport, the canals faced an uncertain future and the threat of closure. Energetic campaigning by Rolt and other members of the IWA successfully saved much of the canal network from that fate and allowed it to be transformed into the wildlife habitat and resource for  leisure that we have today.

L.T.C.Rolt

Lionel Thomas Caswall Rolt was born in Chester in 1910. A prolific writer, he specialised in biographies of some of the major figures in British civil engineering, most notably Brunel and Telford. He is also regarded as one of the pioneers of the leisure cruising industry on Britain’s inland waterways, and was an enthusiast for vintage cars and heritage railways. He played a pioneering role in both the canal and railway preservation movements. Rolt died in Gloucestershire in 1974.

Narrow Boat

L.T.C. Rolt

Canal & River Trust

First published 1944.  Anniversary edition 2014

UK – £14.99 (paperback)