MENDIP, Bridgewater Canal

TOUCHING HISTORY ...
The old working boats already started to arrive for Transport Day this weekend, 2024. Among them the MENDIP.

But it was a very different scene in 1962 when it was still a working boat with one of the canal network's most famous characters, "Chocolate Charlie" - Charlie Atkins at the helm. He is got his name from the cargo he often carried - chocolate crumb from Ellesmere Port to the Cadbury’s factory at Bourneville, Birmingham.

In the 1962 pitcture you can see the building that was The Bridgewater Arms  (now the Youth & Community Centre) behind that to the left a row of cottages, once all home to boatmen and now the site of the Heritage Centre.