In a second blog on our river Thames, following the blog from the country archivist, Jacqui Turner and Emily Astor glide on the river with the National Trust at Cliveden aboard the Liddesdale, Nancy Astor’s electric canoe.
Emily and Jacqui were delighted to join the fully restored Liddesdale for the return trip to Cliveden following her success at the TRAD boat festival in Henley on Thames on Monday 21 July.
The Thames Traditional Boat Festival or TRAD festival is held annually in July at Henley on Thames. It was first held in 1978 as a rally for enthusiasts, passionate about the older, traditionally built craft that were fast disappearing from the river Thames. The TRAD festival awards prizes in multiple boating categories and attracts interest the world over. The Liddesdale won a second place in her category.
The Liddesdale is an electric canoe, built for viscountess Nancy Astor circa 1920 and is kept in the Duke of Sutherland’s boat house on the Cliveden estate, now owned by the National Trust. It was originally built in Buckinghamshire and restored largely in the local area. She is 25 feet 7 ¾ inches (approx. 7.8 metres) ioa and clinker built of Brazilian mahogany on rock elm timbers, with ash stems and pitch pine keel. Electric canoes were the very height of fashion on the Thames in the 1920s but there are now less than 10 that we are aware of including the Liddesdale.
What was it like gliding along the Thames on the Liddesdale, skippered by Captain Chris and Josh? Simply idyllic. The lack of a traditional petrol or diesel motor meant that it was smooth, quiet and the only smell came from the banks of the river, earthy but fresh and far more noticeable that on a motor powered vessel. It was quiet, only the sound of the water and our chatter. It felt traditional yet the way it was powered made it feel way ahead of its time.
Here at the University of Reading, we have played a very, very small part in supporting the restoration of the Liddesdale over the years, scouring the Cliveden Estate files which are part of Waldorf Astor’s Papers here in Special Collections. We searched the archive for mentions of the canoe but found only brief comments. Emily Astor, Nancy and Waldorf Astor’s granddaughter, remembers only sitting in it as a child but had never taken the trip along the Thames.
Enroute back to Cliveden, we were privileged to share the lock with the Aquabelle, one of only 100 remaining Dunkirk Small Boats, captained by the grandson of the original skipper who sailed her to pick up troops during the defence and evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940.
Find out more about the restoration of the Liddesdale here.
And from the crafts people who carried out much of the work here.
You can also book a trip for yourself from Boating at Cliveden here.
READING HISTORY 
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