The Kilsby Boat Project is restoring and repurposing KILSBY, a 112-year-old Fellows, Morton and Clayton butty, transforming the historic hull into a community space for story-telling and other creative activities, and reinstating the traditional boatman’s cabin as a tangible heritage asset that people can climb into and immerse themselves in the history of our canal network.
Volunteers are involved in every stage of the project, assisting with hands-on work, learning about life and livelihoods on the Oxford Canal, and gaining an understanding of the practical, environmental, and heritage considerations at play when salvaging, sympathetically restoring, and transforming an historic boat for community use.
Oxford boater Helen McGregor donated Kilsby to the Jericho Living Heritage Trust (who manage the project) in 2019 (after almost 30 years living on board, the financial and logistical challenge of maintaining an historic boat in Oxford city centre had become unsustainable). In 2020 the wooden superstructure was stripped, the hull was surveyed, and in 2021 a steel baseplate was welded to the iron sides of the hull. KILSBY is currently moored at Tooley’s Historic Boatyard in Banbury, where all work to date has been completed, including a recent (2024) blacking of the hull by a team of volunteers.
Costings for the next stage of the project - reinstating the butty stern (chopped off when the boat was motorised), including modifications to the original design below the waterline to accommodate an electric engine - are currently being drafted and fundraising for this stage is an ongoing undertaking. The Trust extends their thanks to all the people who have so kindly shared their extensive knowledge and experience to date, and who make the designs and fundraising efforts for the next stage of the restoration possible.
The Trust also wishes to thank all the donors; individuals, trusts, and businesses, who have so generously supported the project and enabled the safeguarding of KILSBY’s future on the waterways.
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