Name Lilith

LILITH is a Birmingham canal navigations 'joey'or dayboat. These were simple shaped boats built for short distance work around the Birmingham Canal Navigations network. Some were double ended so that a rudder could be hung on either end. Some hod a small day cabin, but many, including LILITH, were simply open boats.

 LILITH’s builder is unknown but she was commissioned by Lloyds & Lloyds Ironworks at Coombeswood near Halesown in the Black Country. It is quite likely that she was built on the company’s own slipway at Coomeswood. She was gauged on December 2nd 1901.

The boat  has oak sides and an elm bottom. The original oak knees thave been replaced with greenhear tand steel replacements.

Number 9 was one of a large fleet of similar boats that serviced the ironworks. They brought coal from local pits and took away some of the finished products.  At one time, these boats were horse-drawn, but later steam or diesel tugs were used, towing the boats in trains of up to five. In 1922, Number 9 was altered to allow her to carry long steel tubes. The Coombeswood works had become part of the large Stewart & Lloyds Group and iron making had ceased. Coombeswood became a processing plant turning raw metal into tubes. The plant was one of the last Black Country companies to regularly use the canal system as large parts of the works could only be accessed by boat.

Number 9 was sold out of the fleet, probably in the late 1960s. It is thought that she was owned by canal maintenance contractor Alfred Matty for a while. In 1974 she was bought by the a studenr helped to found the Wooden Canal Craft Trust for £100 from an itinerant boat dealer. She was renamed LILITH at that time and work began to re-plank her. She has since gained a back cabin, a fore cabin and cloths over the hold and the hull is almost completely re-planked.

From 1987 to 1993 LILITH was used as part of the project known as 'Boating for a Better Planet'. She transported volunteers who put on impromtu entertainment along the canal to raise funds for environmental charities. From 1996 to 2020 she was the focus for a recycling project, collecting unwanted items along the Ashton canal to be sold for recycling or re-use. This project also involved longer trips, usually towed by FORGET ME NOT, to deliver scrap iron for recycling.

LILITH’S centenary year of 2001 co-incided with the re-opening of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. LILITH carried the first commercial cargo over the Huddersfield summit since 1921, horse drawn. She took scrap iron to Yorkshire and returned with barrels of beer. She was used for carrying timber from Liverpool and Lincoln for HAZEL’S restoration in 2010 and 2011.

It is now over 50 years since LILITH’S restoration was started and much  of it needs doing again. Since the end of the recycling project in 2020 she has been used as storage space pending finding the resources for a major overhaul.