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Heritage Lottery Fund’s £110k To Help Waterways Museum Pass On Heritage Skills

The National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port (formerly the Boat Museum), in partnership with National Historic Ships, has received £110k from Heritage Lottery Fund’s ‘Skills for the Future’ programme to help expand its successful Heritage Boatyard operation.

The funding means the museum will be able to employ more trainees, vastly increasing its ability to conserve its collection of historic canal boats.

Through the training programme, the trainees will develop skills in traditional boat building whilst helping to conserve boats listed on the National Register of Historic Vessels (NRHV), a number of which are based at the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port.

John Inch, Museum Manager, said: “It is absolutely fantastic to get this funding. It is vital to our ambition of creating a sustainable working boatyard at the Museum. As well as maintaining and restoring our historic boats, it will help us to keep these important heritage skills alive by allowing us to train more people.”

The Heritage Boatyard has been developed in partnership between The Waterways Trust, the Boat Museum Society, National Historic Ships and West Cheshire College. It is thanks to this partnership approach that, in addition to working at the Heritage Boatyard, the new trainees will be able to broaden their skills and extend their experience of historic vessels and workplace environments by gaining short-term experience at a range of other sites including:

• Windermere Steamboat Museum – working on a unique collection of leisure vessels listed on the NRHV
• Harker’s Yard Pioneer Skills Centre, Essex – helping maintain the sailing smack Pioneer as well as restoring other historic vessels and building new craft
• Project Boleh, Portsmouth – working on the conservation of Boleh, a junk yacht listed on the NRHV
• Brinklow Boat Services – gaining experience of working with both metal and wood at this well-established boatyard

John continued: “There is a serious shortfall of heritage boat building skills, especially in the inland waterways sector. By the end of their placements, the trainees will have undertaken extensive work on the collection of historic canal boats at the National Waterways Museum and will be highly competent in practical boat building skills and will be able to work on any project within the maritime and inland waterways heritage sector.

“The expansion of our working boatyard further broadens the appeal and relevance of the National Waterways Museum to today’s audiences. It is fantastic that visitors are able to see restoration work in action with young and old working together.”

Hannah Cunliffe, Policy & Project Manager for National Historic Ships, said: ‘The decline in skills and facilities to maintain the UK’s National Historic Fleet has been of growing concern to National Historic Ships and I am delighted that HLF has supported our joint application with the National Waterways Museum. This project will focus on the transfer of knowledge in heritage techniques and will develop associated accreditation to ensure that future generations have the necessary expertise to conserve our maritime heritage at the level its significance deserves’.

The vacancies will be advertised through The Waterways Trust towards the end of 2010 and will be aimed at young people aged 18-25 but are likely to also appeal to people looking for a change of career.

About The Heritage ‘Skills for the Future’ Partners