Andersen Boats

Andersen Boats has built and hired narrowboats from the same yard on Wych House Lane in Middlewich since 1975, when Norwegian boatbuilder Johan Fredrik Andersen put two hand-built boats up for sale after starting out repairing canal craft on a small canalside plot. Three generations of the same family have run the business since, and the current fleet of sixteen boats, sleeping from two to eight people, is still designed and fitted out in-house using oak and ash for the interiors. Holidaymakers set off from the Middlewich yard onto the Trent and Mersey Canal, with routes reaching the Cheshire Ring, the Llangollen Canal and the Anderton Boat Lift within a week's cruising. Boats are let by the week or for short breaks, with induction and canal instruction given at the yard before departure. The business has kept its original site throughout, expanding the fleet gradually rather than opening further yards, and the Andersen family still oversee day-to-day bookings and boat maintenance from Wych House Lane.