National Waterways Museum, Ellesmere Port
National Waterways Museum
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 Location within Cheshire
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| Former name | National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port The Boat Museum North West Museum of Inland Navigation |
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| Established | 1970s |
| Location | Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, England |
| Coordinates | 53°17′17″N 2°53′31″W / 53.288°N 2.892°W |
| Owner | The Canal & River Trust |
| Website | National Waterways Museum |
The National Waterways Museum (NWM) is located in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, England, and is situated at the northern end of the Shropshire Union Canal where it meets the Manchester Ship Canal (grid reference SJ406771). The museum's collections and archives focus on the Britain's navigable inland waterways, including its rivers and canals, and include canal boats, traditional clothing, painted canal decorative ware and tools. It is one of several museums and attractions operated by the Canal & River Trust, the successor to The Waterways Trust.
The museum was founded in the 1970s as the North West Museum of Inland Navigation, later The Boat Museum and then the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port until 2012. In the 1990s The Waterways Trust took on the management of the National Waterways Museum. Funding from Heritage Lottery Fund helped create new displays and improve visitor facilities. In 2012, the Waterways Trust was incorporated to the Canal & River Trust.
The name, National Waterways Museum, was formerly used to include the inland waterways collection at two other museum sites in England, which now are named the Gloucester Waterways Museum in Gloucester, and The Canal Museum in Stoke Bruerne, Northamptonshire.
The museum is entrusted with a collection that has the status of a designated collection, as determined by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. However, the standard of collection management has been the subject of considerable concern and criticism in the specialist press because, essentially, the museum has insufficient money to fund the upkeep of the many historic boats in the collection. Unlike the National Railway Museum, which receives funding direct from HM Government, the NWM only receives public money through the Canal and River Trust, previously British Waterways. During the winter of 2008-2009, opening hours were cut at Gloucester and Ellesmere Port to just two days per week in an effort to manage a tough financial situation. Some boats were advertised in Museums Journal early in 2009 for disposal, there being insufficient money for their restoration. Visitors to the Ellesmere Port site can see boats, in the care of a National Museum, sunken into the water or kept afloat by automatic pumps. However, the initiative to create a Heritage Boatyard, with lottery and other funding, has spurred a revival in the museum's fortunes and work on addressing the areas of maintenance is now taking place. The Heritage Boatyard trains young people in skills that might otherwise be lost. Two boats, Ilkeston and Ferret, are sponsored by the London Canal Museum, which contributes annually to the cost of their maintenance.
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