Take in a museum during your boat trip
BRITAIN’s 3000-mile network of navigable canals and rivers passes dozens of waterside museums and attractions, many of them linked to our nation’s industrial past.
Here’s Drifters’ choice of eight waterside museums to visit afloat:
Black Country Living Museum: Famous as a filming location for The Peaky Blinders, this 26-acre open-air museum on the Birmingham Canal Navigations gives visitors an insight into life in one of the world’s most heavily industrialised landscapes.
Leeds Industrial Museum: Next to the Leeds & Liverpool Canal at Canal Road in Leeds, this museum explores the inventions that shaped the city, from Scootacars to steam engines and space food to the Spirograph.
National Waterways Museum, Ellesmere Port: This museum brings together a unique fleet of historic boats, docks, warehouses, a forge, stables and workers’ cottages with rich collections and archives to tell the story of Britain’s canals.
Hepworth Wakefield Museum: This modern gallery on the banks of the Calder & Hebble Navigation showcases the extraordinary work by the British sculptor Barbara Hepworth. There are also works on display by Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, Naum Gabo, Antony Gormley, David Hockney, Bridget Riley and Anthony Caro. It takes about 22 hours to reach the museum from Drifters’ canal boat hire base at Sowerby Bridge.
Warwick Castle: This incredible medieval castle on the banks of the River Avon offers a fantastic day
out, with Flight of the Eagles displays, Horrible Histories Maze, Kingmaker exhibition, towers and ramparts to climb, the Castle Dungeon tour, and also the Mighty Trebuchet firing spectacle.
The Canal Museum at Stoke Bruerne: On the banks of the Grand Union Canal in Northampton, this quirky little museum tells the story of Britain’s canals through archive films, models and artefacts.
Anderton Boat Lift: Connecting the River Weaver Navigation and the Trent & Mersey Canal, the Anderton Boat Lift and its museum, tell the story of this incredible Victorian structure nicknamed ‘The Cathedral of the Canals’.
We The Curious in Bristol: Part of Bristol’s Floating Harbour, We The Curious is a science centre and educational charity with interactive displays, a planetarium, and exhibitions for everyone to enjoy.