Grand Union Canal Thames Boatyard 01895 252019

The Uxbridge Boat Centre is a traditional boatyard with its origins in commercial narrowboats on the Grand Union Canal, with a history that goes back to the days of Fellows, Morton & Clayton who ran the yard right up to 1948. The present owner, Alan Boswell, took over the boatyard in 1976. Starting as a repair yard for wooden boats, the change has been to move over to steel narrowboat repairs.

Grand Union Canal Thames mail order chandlery 01895 252019

Linda Hamilton joined Alan as a director at the Uxbridge Boat Centre, and introduced the chandlery, based on the original parts store for the boatyard. The chandlery shop West London location now accounts for the largest proportion of their turnover. They also supply a lot by mail order chandlery and have a range of their own unique items that they manufacture on site.

Today then, in addition to a River Thames chandlery handy for boating products M40 M25 London area, they have a dry-dock, crane and a collection of canal boat workshops that provide boat repair, servicing, engine repair and DIY facilities. They have their own machine shop and manufacture sterngear, narrowboat chimneys and other boat related items. Although they do not build narrowboat shells they will build one-off specialist boats and do boat fitting. They offer a fit-out discount scheme.

Cutting and lengthening boats is something they do fairly regularly, as is over-plating. A lot of boats built in the 1970s, that have not been very well looked after, are being re-plated. They were built with 6mm bottom plates, or less in those days, but it may give some clue to finding out how long narrowboats last. The skeg straightening and rudder repair business is boosted by Denham Deep Lock, which catches many people out. This is a busy yard working on a lot of boats and sometimes they take six boats out of the water in a week for work in the yard or for one-day surveys.

The inland boat chandlery at Uxbridge Boat Centre, located on the banks of the Grand Union Canal supplies products sourced from leading boating trade suppliers like Aquafax wholesalers, Bainbridge Marine, C-Quip hardware, EC Smith marine equipment, Marathon Leisure marine products, Nauticalia boating equipment. Plastimo, Timage boat fittings, Unipart Marine and XM yachting. They specialise in the paints they use in their own yard, Narrowboat paints, Craftmaster Paints, Blakes and International and Ryland Paints. They themselves fit ITT Cleghorn Waring pumps and solid fuel stoves, compact mini-stoves.

M25 M40 area boat repairs and servicing 01895 252019

At the time they started, the demand for steel narrowboats was growing rapidly and so Alan decided to enter the market constructing both narrowboats and houseboats. But many other narrowboat builders were also setting up in business, often with no more overheads than the corner of a field adjacent to a canal. As the competition became fiercer, Alan concluded that narrowboat building at his Uxbridge yard was no longer profitable.

So he decided to give up boat building and the last new narrowboat went down the yard's slipway 12 years ago. Today, Uxbridge Boat Centre now concentrates on M25 area boat repairs and servicing. With engineering and woodworking shops on site, the company is fully equipped to provide a comprehensive service covering anything from extending the length of a steel boat and major refits to boat repainting. The yard is also open to do-it-yourself boat owners who can book space in one of the boat sheds or dry dock and purchase all the materials they need on site.

The concept for a chandlery had really come about when local boat owners called at the yard for boat building materials, equipment and spares. Mail order boating gear, can range from brass portholes to paints and postcards, and from screws to traditional cast iron stoves. Satisfying narrowboat owners needs, from building boats to equipping them, mail order narrowboat chandlery has given the business a huge catchment area.

Uxbridge Boat Centre Ltd

Uxbridge Wharf

Waterloo Road

Uxbridge

Middlesex

UB8 2QX

Tel: 01895 252019

Fax: 01895 811035

Email ubc@ubc.eclipse.co.uk