Mendip, who spent much of her working life carrying chocolate crumb between the Cadbury factories at Knighton and Bournville in Birmingham, is being restored at the Museum’s Heritage Boatyard and helped by a £10,000 donation from Cadbury.
The trip through the canal network back to the Bournville headquarters of the chocolate maker will mirror the trips the boat made by Charlie Atkins ‘Chocolate Charlie,’ the canal personality who was known to all the children who lived near the canal.
Much of the work in the Heritage Boatyard has been undertaken by young people learning basic boat building skills as part of a Future Jobs Fund scheme assisted by Heritage Boatyard staff and skilled volunteers from the Boat Museum Society.
The timetable – subject to change due to local water conditions – sees the boat leave Ellesmere Port on Saturday September 17, travel through the Midlands and arrive at Bournville for a gala day on Thursday September 22. She will spend a few days at the Black Country Living Museum before returning to the National Waterways Museum on September 28.
Peter Collins, Collections Manager at the National Waterways Museum, said: “This trip is a fantastic way to showcase the restoration work on Mendip and the wider regeneration of the Museum. We’re very proud of the work done in the Heritage Boatyard, the restoration work is top quality and the trainees are getting some priceless training. Thanks to the support from Cadbury along with our regular supporters we’re pleased to have been able to get Mendip back on the water and make Chocolate Charlie proud.”
Tony Hales, Chairman of British Waterways said: It’s fantastic to see Mendip back in the water and recreating her historic journey to Bournville. Birmingham’s canals were once the industrial heart of our country and were made so by boats such as Mendip. Today these boats add great colour to our waterways and are unique reminders of our industrial heritage. I’m delighted to see Mendip restored to such an excellent standard and all the volunteers and boatyard trainees can be rightly proud of their achievements.
A Kraft Foods spokesman said: “Bournville was built in the nineteenth century primarily because of the nearby canal so the waterways played a pivotal role in the birth and subsequent success of Cadbury. We were delighted to help support the trip and are very much looking forward to greeting her when she arrives.”
Cadbury is now owned by Kraft Foods.
Mendip is a composite (steel sides and wooden bottom) motor narrow boat, famous as home to ‘Chocolate Charlie’ for many years After the Second World War, Fellows, Morton and Clayton (FMC) ordered six steel motor boat hulls from Yarwoods of Northwich which were delivered in 1947. No. 5 was Mendip so she was one of the last two ‘Joshers’ ever to be built to a unique design of which had hardly altered from the 1880s. The boats drew their nick-name of ‘Josher’ from Joshua Fellows, who produced the original design.
When ‘Chocolate Charlie’ (Charlie Atkins) first became her master, Mendip carried chocolate crumb between the North West and Birmingham. The crumb was carried from Cadburys of Knighton on the Shropshire Union Canal (Market Drayton) to Bournville at Birmingham. The journey, carrying a 25 ton load, involved 50 locks and took 14 hours. In a normal working week, Charlie would manage to do two round trips.
Charlie was born in 1902 into a boating family at Moss Pool Lock on the Newport Branch of the Shropshire Union Canal. He learned his boating skills on the Shroppie Flys until, at the age of 17, he took over his own boat, the horse boat Skate, working for the Chester and Liverpool Lighterage Co. He then worked for Midland and Coast for 12 years before joining FMC.
Once Mendip and Charlie had finished their working lives, they moored up at Preston Brook. It was during these years, with the rising interest in canals, that Charlie appeared in various television programmes which earned him modest national fame.
As the area round Preston Brook began to be developed, it was suggested that both man and boat should move to Ellesmere Port as a sort of floating resident caretaker at the Boat Museum. Charlie was considering it when, because of ill health, his doctor ordered him to move off the boat. He went to live with his son in Birmingham.
In the meantime, the boat was kept at Preston Brook as it was hoped he would return to it. Sadly he didn’t and he died in June 1981.
The Heritage Boatyard is a project working with range of partners and funders – including National Historic Ships - that aims to preserve traditional boat building skills relating to inland waterways craft and pass on these skills to a new generation. The Heritage Boatyard is working to restore and maintain the museum's collection of historic craft and in time develop into a commercial restoration boatyard.
