A purpose built yard dedicated entirely to wooden boat restoration and bespoke new narrowboat construction.
All year fully undercover Dry Dock
Wooden Narrowboat Restoration
Although the main wooden canal boat building era ended towards the middle of the last century, Bates Boatyard has continued to produce fine quality restorations and new wooden boats, that have an individuality and character unrivalled by the mass production of modern steel hulls.
Traditional Sideslip
With a traditional side launch to finish the job, what more could your wooden boat need? Boats restored at the yard have received the Ken Keay award from the Historic Narrowboat Owners Club on four separate occasions in the last seven years.
Dry Dock
With our additional Dry Dock facilities three miles away from the sideslip, there is also the opportunity for fine tuning the major work undertaken on the slipway. The dry dock is one of the few fully undercover docks for hire in the South. We have heating and day light equivalent lighting so whatever the time of the year you can get on with work on your boat. The dock offers blacking and welding facilities and carries out all other boat work.
Historic Narrowboats at Bates Boatyard
A number of projects are usually run side by side. On site at the moment you will see a 1912 Ice Boat, a broads cruiser, a little ricky and two big ricky butties. On the water you will see a 1950's vintage plywood river cruiser, another big ricky butty, at least one full length wooden motor and often a tug or two. There are few other collections of boats that represent such a cross section of the wooden boat building era on our inland waterways and certainly fewer still that are being restored with such pace and efficiency.
