Name Betelgeuse

BETELGEUSE is a narrow boat butty of steel construction, built by Harland and Wolff, Woolwich in 1935 and originally paired with BARGUS. Her original owners were the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company from 1935 to 1948, thereafter the Docks and Inland Waterways Executive and the British Waterways Board, always carrying general cargoes.

In 1960 she passed to the Willow Wren Carrying Company and in the 1970s she was working for A Jones and Stroudwater Carriers in the retail coal trade. A change of use followed when she was known as THE CHESTER PACKET during the 1970s and ran as a trip boat. Shortly before or on 2002, she was purchased and restored to cargo carrying condition, with the replacement of the original elm bottom with a steel one that year. In 2003, she was carrying cargo again and in 2014 she was bought by her present was purchased by her current owner who reunited her with BARGUS in 2016. In 2023, both BARGUS and BETELGEUSE began being used as pleasure boats once more.