The National Waterways Museum (NWM) is in

Ellesmere Port Ellesmere Port ( ) is a port town in the Cheshire West and Chester borough in Cheshire, England. Ellesmere Port is on the south eastern edge of the Wirral Peninsula, north of Chester, south of Birkenhead, southwest of Runcorn and south of ...

, Cheshire, England, at the northern end of the Shropshire Union Canal where it meets the Manchester Ship Canal (). The museum's collections and archives focus on the Britain's navigable inland waterways, including its rivers and

canals Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow un ...

, and include canal boats, traditional clothing, painted canal decorative ware and tools. It is one of several museums and attractions operated by the

Canal & River Trust The Canal & River Trust (CRT), branded as in Wales, holds the guardianship of 2,000 miles of canals and rivers, together with reservoirs and a wide range of heritage buildings and structures, in England and Wales. Launched on 12 July 2012, the ...

, the successor to The Waterways Trust.

History

Industrial age

The museum site occupies the former Netherpool port that was designed by

Thomas Telford Thomas Telford FRS, FRSE, (9 August 1757 – 2 September 1834) was a Scottish civil engineer. After establishing himself as an engineer of road and canal projects in Shropshire, he designed numerous infrastructure projects in his native Scot ...

, under the direction of

William Jessop William Jessop (23 January 1745 – 18 November 1814) was an English civil engineer, best known for his work on canals, harbours and early railways in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Early life Jessop was born in Devonport, Devon, the ...

, for the ill-fated Ellesmere Canal. The proposed waterway in England and

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

was planned to carry commercial traffic between the rivers

Mersey The River Mersey () is in North West England. Its name derives from Old English and means "boundary river", possibly referring to its having been a border between the ancient kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. For centuries it has formed part ...

and

Severn , name_etymology = , image = SevernFromCastleCB.JPG , image_size = 288 , image_caption = The river seen from Shrewsbury Castle , map = RiverSevernMap.jpg , map_size = 288 , map_c ...

. The museum's historic buildings are all that remain of the inland port that transferred goods and cargo from narrowboats onto rivercraft that would then sail to the docks at Liverpool. The northern section of the Ellesmere Canal, which was built as a contour canal, connected Netherpool port to

Chester Canal The Chester Canal was an English canal linking the south Cheshire town of Nantwich with the River Dee at Chester. It was intended to link Chester to Middlewich, with a branch to Nantwich, but the Trent and Mersey Canal were unco-operative abou ...

in 1797. When it opened, its revenue was expected to help fund the rest of the Ellesmere Canal project. However by 1805 work had stalled because of rising costs and the failure to generate the expected income from commercial boat traffic. The plans to build the remaining southern section to the

Shrewsbury Canal The Shrewsbury Canal (or Shrewsbury and Newport Canal) was a canal in Shropshire, England. Authorised in 1793, the main line from Trench to Shrewsbury was fully open by 1797, but it remained isolated from the rest of the canal network until 183 ...

and the connection between

Pontcysyllte The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (; cy, Traphont Ddŵr Pontcysyllte) is a navigable aqueduct that carries the Llangollen Canal across the River Dee in the Vale of Llangollen in northeast Wales. The 18-arched stone and cast iron structure is for use ...

and Chester were abandoned. For the next forty years the port served boats using the Chester Canal until it was taken over by the

Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company The Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company was a Company in England, formed in 1846, which managed several canals and railways. It intended to convert a number of canals to railways, but was leased by the London and North Western Railway (LN ...

in 1845. It amalgamated the former stretches of Ellesmere Canal, along with Eastern and Western branches of the

Montgomery Canal The Montgomery Canal ( cy, Camlas Trefaldwyn), known colloquially as "The Monty", is a partially restored canal in eastern Powys and northwest Shropshire. The canal runs from the Llangollen Canal at Frankton Junction to Newtown via Llanym ...

, the Shrewsbury Canal and the

Shropshire Canal The Shropshire Canal was a tub boat canal built to supply coal, ore and limestone to the industrial region of east Shropshire, England, that adjoined the River Severn at Coalbrookdale. It ran from a junction with the Donnington Wood Canal ascend ...

into the Shropshire Union Canal. The port at Netherpool remained in operation until it was finally closed in the 1950s.

Waterways museum

A museum, which was called the North West Museum of Inland Navigation, was founded at the disused port in the 1970s. It was later renamed The Boat Museum and then, until 2012, the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port. In the 1990s The Waterways Trust took on the management of the National Waterways Museum. Funding from

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

helped create new displays and improve visitor facilities. In 2012, the Waterways Trust was incorporated to the Canal & River Trust. EP Boat Museum

The name National Waterways Museum was formerly used to include the

inland waterway A body of water, such as a river, canal or lake, is navigable if it is deep, wide and calm enough for a water vessel (e.g. boats) to pass safely. Such a navigable water is called a ''waterway'', and is preferably with few obstructions against d ...

s collection at two other museum sites in England, which now are named the

Gloucester Waterways Museum Gloucester Waterways Museum is housed in a Victorian warehouse at Gloucester Docks in the city of Gloucester, England. It is located along the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal and River Severn. It is one of several museums and attractions operat ...

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...

, and The Canal Museum in

Stoke Bruerne Stoke Bruerne is a small village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in West Northamptonshire, England about north of Milton Keynes and south of Northampton. The civil parish population at the 2011 Census was 373. History Stoke Brue ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

Funding

The museum is entrusted with a collection that has the status of a designated collection, as determined by the

Museums, Libraries and Archives Council The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) was until May 2012 a non-departmental public body and registered charity in England with a remit to promote improvement and innovation in the area of museums, libraries and archives. Its function ...

. However, the standard of collection management has been the subject of considerable concern and criticism in the waterways press because, essentially, the museum has insufficient money to fund the upkeep of the many historic boats in the collection. Unlike the

National Railway Museum The National Railway Museum is a museum in York forming part of the Science Museum Group. The museum tells the story of rail transport in Britain and its impact on society. It is the home of the national collection of historically significant ...

, which receives funding direct from HM Government, the NWM only receives public money through the Canal and River Trust, previously British Waterways. During the winter of 2008–2009, opening hours were cut at Gloucester and Ellesmere Port to just two days per week in an effort to manage a tough financial situation. Some boats were advertised in ''Museums Journal'' early in 2009 for disposal, there being insufficient money for their restoration. Visitors to the Ellesmere Port site can see boats, in the care of a National Museum, sunken into the water or kept afloat by automatic pumps. However, the initiative to create a Heritage Boatyard, with lottery and other funding, has spurred a revival in the museum's fortunes and work on addressing the areas of maintenance is now taking place. The Heritage Boatyard trains young people in skills that might otherwise be lost. Two boats, ''Ilkeston'' and ''Ferret'', are sponsored by the London Canal Museum, which contributes annually to the cost of their maintenance.

Collections

The museum incorporates all surviving parts of the original industrial port. Over the past 40 years, the historic site has been restored. This includes the

locks Lock(s) may refer to: Common meanings *Lock and key, a mechanical device used to secure items of importance *Lock (water navigation), a device for boats to transit between different levels of water, as in a canal Arts and entertainment * ''Lock ...

, docks and

warehouse A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the outskirts of cities ...

s and a pump and

engine room On a ship, the engine room (ER) is the compartment where the machinery for marine propulsion is located. To increase a vessel's safety and chances of surviving damage, the machinery necessary for the ship's operation may be segregated into var ...

. A

toll house A tollhouse or toll house is a building with accommodation for a toll collector, beside a tollgate on a toll road, canal, or toll bridge. History Many tollhouses were built by turnpike trusts in England, Wales and Scotland during the 18th an ...

built in 1805 and the Island Warehouse was built in 1871 to store grain. The Island Warehouse has an exhibition on the history of boat-building and another describing the social history of canals. The Pump House contains the steam-driven pumping engines which supplied power for the

hydraulic Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counte ...

cranes and the capstans which were used around the dock, and the Power Hall contains a variety of other engines. The

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, gr ...

's forge was where the ironwork for the canal and its boats was made. A resident blacksmith works in the forge. The stables which housed the horses and pigs are still present. The former toll house hosts temporary and touring exhibitions. The Waterways Archive contains a wide range of material relating to waterways in Britain and abroad. A terrace of four houses known as Porter's Row contains dock workers' cottages which have been decorated and furnished to represent different periods from the 1840s to the 1950s. The museum contains a collection of historic boats. Short boat trips along the Shropshire Union Canal are arranged. The museum is open at advertised times throughout the year. The locks within the museum site are designated by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

as Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

s. Also listed at Grade II are the lighthouse at the entry of the canal into the Mersey, and a lock keeper's hut.

Television

In 2010, the museum was one of three featured on Richard Macer's BBC Four series ''Behind the Scenes at the Museum''. In 2020 the museum featured as the start point of series two of Robbie Cumming's ''Canal Boat Diaries'' on BBC1. The episode travels along the Shropshire Union from the museum to Audlem.BBC Four: Canal Boat Diaries: Ellesmere Port to Audlem
Retrieved 10 May 2022

References

External links

National Waterways Museum
- Canal & River Trust {{Coord, 53.288, -2.892, display=title Museums in Cheshire Canal museums in England European Route of Industrial Heritage Anchor Points Museums with year of establishment missing Archives in Cheshire Grade II listed buildings in Cheshire Ellesmere Port