Name Hazel

In 1913 the Runcorn boatyard of Simpson Davies built a pair of their distinctively styled narrow boats for the Salt Union Company. They were named MULL and COLL.  They worked together, horse drawn, delivering salt to industrial premises in North West England.

In 1929 the boats were sold to Agnes Beech and renamed HAZEL and EILEEN.  They plied, carrying coal, between Leigh and Barnton, near Northwich, where Mrs Beech had a coal yard. Their motive power was now a mule. By 1948 this work was finished and HAZEL bought by a garage owner in Leigh and was used for passenger trips towed by the motor boat STAR.

With new owners in 1951 she was fitted with a full length cabin and an old petrol engine and began a new career as a cruising residential craft, travelling the canals on campaigns to save the canals from closure.

She had a series of residential owners over the years and eventually found her way to a residential mooring in central London

In 1988 HAZEL was donated to the Wooden Canal Craft Trust  (now the Wooden Canal Boat Society).  After years of conservation at Runcorn and Ashton under Lyme she was slipped for restoration at the Heritage Boatyard in Stalybridge in 2011.  In 2012 HAZEL received the Keay Award for the best work done on a wooden narrow boat in that year.

In 2015 HAZEL, now restored to her original unpowered status, entered service as a wellbeing boat. She is normally towed by one of the charity’s motor boats.