Cadbury donates £10,000 to the National Waterways Museum

17th February 2011

Categories: Modern History News

Chocolate firm Cadbury is sweet on the National Waterways Museum – thanks to a £10,000 donation towards the restoration of a part of the company’s history.

The canal narrowboat Mendip, which spent much of its working life carrying chocolate crumb between the Cadbury factories at Knighton and Bournville, is being restored at the Museum’s Heritage Boatyard.

In September once the work is finished the boat will make the trip through the canal network back to the Bournville headquarters of the chocolate maker, mirroring the trips the boat made by Charlie Atkins ‘Chocolate Charlie,’ the canal personality who was known to all the children who lived near the canal.

Much of the work in the Heritage Boatyard has been undertaken by young people learning basic boat building skills as part of a Future Jobs Fund scheme assisted by Heritage Boatyard staff and skilled volunteers from the Boat Museum Society.

Museum General Manager John Inch said: “Mendip is an important part of our collection and we’re delighted that Cadbury are supporting its restoration with this generous grant. Mendip, Chocolate Charlie and his cargo of chocolate crumb was a real fixture of the canal scene in the Midlands in the 1950s and we’re excited to be able to re-create the journey in September.”

Mendip is a traditionally-built, wooden bottomed, motor narrowboat and has been part of the National Waterways Museum collection since the early 1980s. From 1948, Mendip carried chocolate crumb between Cadbury at Knighton on the Shropshire Union Canal and Bournville in Birmingham. The journey, carrying a 25 ton load, involved 50 locks and took 14 hours. In a normal working week, Charlie would manage to do two round trips. Children playing alongside the canal could sometimes be treated to a ride on Mendip, and even a bit of chocolate if they were lucky. During this time Charlie became known as “Chocolate Charlie”.

In the boatyard Mendip has had new wooden bottoms fitted and repairs made to the steel hull. Soon she will be craned back into the water, where the refurbished diesel engine will be refitted and painting and other work will be completed.

The Heritage Boatyard is a project working with range of partners and funders that aims to preserve traditional boat building skills relating to inland waterways craft and pass on these skills to a new generation. The Heritage Boatyard is working to restore and maintain the museum's collection of historic craft and in time develop into a commercial restoration boatyard.

For more information about the National Waterways Museum click here.