Birchills (narrowboat)

Birchills is a historic, ‘Joey’ boat with a small day cabin, built in 1953 by Ken Keay of Walsall. Birchills is one of the last wooden day boats made and was used to carry coal to Wolverhampton Power Station.

This boat is double-ended and the mast and rudder could be changed from one end to the other. This enabled its use in narrow canals or basins where there was no room to turn the boat around.

It is now owned by the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley, where it is based and can be seen dockside in the Lord Ward's Canal Arm. Birchills underwent major restoration in early 2015 following £62,000 worth of donations.