The writing on this site is mine. Twenty guides, the answer pages, the gift collections and the product pages are written here rather than bought in, and they describe what we actually make. Where a page names a size, a paper or a colour, it comes from the same catalogue the checkout charges against, so a page can't promise a product we don't sell.
The rule the guides run on
Canal writing repeats a great many numbers nobody can trace, and the licence and mooring figures are the worst of it: they are revised annually, quoted everywhere, and dated almost nowhere. The rule here is that a cost figure carries the body that published it and the date it was checked, or the figure goes. That's the whole rule. The licence cost guide is the clearest case, and it is the reason this site links to Canal & River Trust as often as it does. They set the prices. We quote them and say when we looked.
The same rule is why some pages here say plainly that something is not settled rather than picking the version everyone repeats.
What I write about
- The guides: what a licence costs, what living aboard costs, how deep a canal is, how to steer one
- Boat names and signwriting: the naming tradition, and the roses-and-castles lettering that carries it
- The questions: the short answers people look up before they buy anything
- Making her yours: what a boat name on a wall is actually for
What we make
Three things, all printed to order in the UK. A personalised name print, which sets a boat name, a waterway and a date in the traditional canal palette. A photograph printed as it is. And a photograph repainted in a house style, previewed free before anybody pays for it. Every upload is measured against every print size before purchase, and any size that would print soft is withdrawn rather than sold with a warning attached.
Getting hold of me
Corrections are the useful kind of email, particularly on the cost pages: if Canal & River Trust has moved a price and this site still carries the old one, I'd rather hear it from a reader than find it six months later. hello@narrowboatgifts.co.uk reaches me.
Written by Craig Fearn, Narrowboat Gifts. Last updated .