Name Alder

ALDER was commissioned by Fellows Morton & Clayton Ltd. and built in 1931 by W.J. Yarwood & Sons Ltd. at Northwich, Cheshire. Her original engine was a fifteen horsepower Bolinder semi diesel, but she currently has a nineteen horsepower Gardner engine installed which previously belonged to the narrow boat tug FRED. She has a coppered steel hull, with iron frames and a steel bottom that was originally made of elm. Her initial length was seventy-one feet, but she was shortened to fifty-seven feet in the 1960s. She operated as fleet number eighty and was based at Anderton, Cheshire, as part of the Northern Fleet. Between 1949 and 1990, ALDER worked for British Waterways as a maintenance craft. In 1990, she was bought by the present owner and fully restored to 1931 condition and her original red and green livery. She has the correct period back cabin and engine room and is moored at Ellesmere, Cheshire.