Horseboat Maria makes a visit to the Rochdale canal

Horseboat Maria and Bilbo

The horseboat Maria is making a special trip along the Rochdale Canal on her return home after attending the Rochdale Canal Festival during July. She will be making a full passage of the 33 miles of the Rochdale Canal from Sowerby Bridge to Manchester city centre.

The horsedrawn boat took part in the Rochdale Canal Festival, which was celebrating its third year. The festival celebrates the history and heritage of the Rochdale Canal and raises awareness of the canal as a place for everyone to visit and enjoy.

The Waterways Trust (TWT) owns the Rochdale Canal and TWT wanted something to link all the communities along the canal during the Rochdale Canal Festival. The horse-drawn boat was chosen for the 2009 festival.

Bilbo Baggins is the boathorse who has been towing Maria which is Britain’s oldest surviving wooden narrowboat, built in 1854. The horseboat, restored in 1977/8 by Ashton Packet Boat Company, for her 150th anniversary in 2004, returned to her role as a cargo boat and is now involved in education and heritage work on Britain’s canals.

The Horseboating Society is unique in Britain making longer journeys to preserve and promote horseboating on the national network of canals, with only 5 horsedrawn passenger boats in all of Britain.

In 2000, Maria made her longest journey to date, to the Inland Waterways Association National Festival via Manchester, Birmingham and London. The Horseboating Society was given an award “for the most enterprising and meritorious journey to the National Festival”.

Residents of Rochdale, and the surrounding communities, will be able to see how the boats travelled along the waterways as the boat stops at various points.