'Dancing Duck' back home

IT WAS ten years ago that the narrowboat the Dancing Duck was built as a hire boat at Tooley's Boatyard on the Oxford Canal in Banbury, but lack of space meant it had to be moored elsewhere.

Lack of moorings at Banbury meant is could not be moored either at or near the yard in the town, but now space has been made and the 39ft narrowboat is back at the yard, Alan Tilbury tells us.

Oldest

So the boat is now available for hire direct from the yard, which is the oldest continually working dry dock on the inland canal system.

When the Dancing Duck was launched it became the first such boat to enter the canal as a ‘side launch' from the dock in almost 90 years, and was seen by a crowd of spectators in July 2007, and has been on hire ever since.