Category: News

Students and staff from Frank Wise School visited Tooley’s Boatyard in November as they had a project that required the students to be filmed on a narrowboat. The visit provided a unique and memorable experience, allowing the students to engage with the canal and the boatyard in a real, working environment. Our fantastic volunteer Nigel kindly…

Echoes of the past, written by Matthew Armitage, is the story of Ghostly goings-on at Tooley’s Dock. The Dry Dock at Tooley’s Boatyard is approaching its 250th anniversary and many people long gone (but not forgotten) spent their working lives here. Their ghosts now appear to be returning to help and sometimes guide the modern…

Banbury Canal Festival 2025 is on 4th & 5th October. In spite of the restrictions on the canal due to a shortage of water most events are able to go ahead. This includes Boat Trips so book ahead via: Come along to the centre of Banbury for a variety of activities, performances, demonstrations, food, crafts…

We have a new video to show you around the boatyard. View the video, or better still visit us in Banbury.

Boat Trips on Saturday 24th May were disrupted by a fallen tree above bridge 163 (the footbridge) in Banbury. The Dancing Duck could not, therefore run on the usual route. Fortunately we were able to run some trips going down through the lock to a turning point adjacent Bankside Park and back. Boat Trips will…

Delighted to tell you that National Historic Ships UK have awarded us a grant of £500 towards Hardy docking, surveying, mapping the hull planks, prioritising which need replacing first + some caulking and hull work. Docking is booked for April 3rd – 5th: watch out for more details about an open day, new opportunities for…

Finally, Banbury Lock is open after being closed since the beginning of January. Lock 29 on the Oxford Canal in Banbury has been closed since early January for essential repairs. The Canal & River Trust initiated the closure to address maintenance issues, with the work finishing February 21, 2025. The new lock gate has been…

We have been having fun in the forge recently where we have been forging a nickel iron meteorite into jewellery! It fell in Sweden in 1906 but it is actually around 4.2 billion years old and came from a asteroid belt near Jupiter. This is a small part of around 250kg of the material found…

We were very sorry to hear of the death of Timothy West, actor and canal champion, on November 13th aged 90. He was working till the last, with his last TV appearance aired on Wednesday Nov 14th – a guest role in soap Doctors in what was its penultimate episode before it finished on the 15th…

As with everybody else, we at Tooley’s Boatyard have been suffering with the water levels from “Storm Bert”. On Sunday we came the closest since 2007 to flooding. The towpaths went under water, and the water came through the boatyard and made it to the front doors of the Chandlery. A big thank you to…