Resurfaced story of the 'ghost boat' sparks interest in canal history
A rediscovery of the wreck of an sunken narrowboat has led to the resurfacing of a tale of tragic death on the canals of Shropshire.
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The Shropshire Union Canal Society is busily restoring the Montgomery canal and at the same time as they are bringing the waterway back to life, but also uncovering long forgotten local stories.
Chris Bryan-Smith has put together the story of the Usk, a ‘narrer-narrer’, slang for narrow-narrowboat, which is said to be haunted by the boatman who skippered her and was killed in an accident nearly 150 years ago.
Mr Bryan-Smith said: "As a digger shaped the canal channel at Crickheath Tramway Wharf about a month ago, it came across ironwork from a narrowboat deep in the earth.
"All the woodwork had long since rotted away but the iron skeleton remained bent but not broken."
Mr Bryan-Smith, has used the painstaking research of society members Sue Ball and Jan Johnson to put together a compelling story. He believes the sunken vessel is almost certainly the Usk.
The remains of the boat had been found in 2009 when volunteers unearthed the remains of a boat at Crickheath Wharf in 2009 during bankside work. But the recent rediscovery has sparked another bout of interest in its history.
The tragic tale of the Usk doesn’t start at Crickheath on the Montgomery canal but at Hadley Park Lock on the Trench Arm of the Shrewsbury and Newport canal. It is now in Telford.
The canal was abandoned many years ago but was originally a small coal canal with the lock being only 6ft 7 inches (2 metres) wide, so could only take tub boats or ‘narrer-narrers’, no wider than 6 ft 4 inches (1.93 metres).
Mr Bryan-Smith said there was a dreadful accident as dusk was falling on Monday July 26 1887.
The Usk was the last boat of the day and slipping gently into Hadley Park Lock.
The locks on the Trench arm, just south of Wappenshall Junction, were unusual as the bottom gates had a guillotine mechanism with the gates going up and down with a counterweight box, rather than swinging side to side. The top gates were the usual ‘mitre’ arrangement. They looked like something from the French revolution.
Mr Bryan-Smith said: "George Benbow was skipper of the Usk with 13-year-old, William Evanson as his crew and it appears that as the boat passed under the lock gate, George did not duck and was hit and killed by the counterweight box.
"William later said at the inquest into George’s death: “We were coming through Hadley Park Lock, and George shouted to me to drop the gate.
"I was by the horse at the time, but I ran to do as requested.
"As I lowered the gate George did not stoop at all and so caught his head against the weight box.
"George then got onto the cabin and cried ‘murder, murder’.
"I asked him what was wrong, but he did not speak again, and it was then that I saw the blood coming from his ears and he dropped down on top of the cabin”.
From that tragic day, the Usk was doomed, an unlucky, haunted boat that many boatmen would not work on. She was sold and traded on the smaller canals on the Shropshire Union system.
"But the luck did not improve so she was finally abandoned and sank on the Montgomery canal near Crickheath, probably in the early 1890s, and there she lies to this very day, a ghostly reminder of a tragedy long ago," he adds.
"It is fascinating that restoring the Montgomery canal has given us a glimpse into the past and allowed this story to re-surface so that George, and his ghostly boat, the Usk, can be remembered."
If anyone knows more about the story of the Usk and the people mentioned they can phone Chris Bryan-Smith on 07772 297252, or visit the canal society website.