A.M.Models

Every time I pass the Horseleyfields dock at Wolverhampton I look across the
line of buildings, now business units, but once part of the carriers wharf
and stable block, to the boat dock. Each time there seems to be a decline in
the structure of the building.

I have been going through some notes taken a few years ago and references to
the Shropshire Union Railway & Canal Carrying Co records at Ellesmere Port
Boat Museum.

There are references to the making of a new Boat Dock and Boat Shed in 1883
and this seems to fit with map evidence, I believe the Dock was open before-
like many BCN boatyards.

Commercial Wharf was established by the firm of Crowley, Hicklin & Co in
1811 they prospered in the canal carrying trade and were rated second only
to Pickfords in this trade. With the death of John Crowley the firm was
guided into the railway carrying age by Benjamin Hicklin Junior. He was
subsequently joined in this endeavour by Charles Lloyd Browning one time
ironmaster at Millfields and Deepfields Ironworks (until the "crash" of
1857). The Hicklins and Brownings established the links with Chaplin & Horne
which guarenteed considerable business as railway cartage agents within the
Midlands. Crowley were also boatage agents for the railway interchange
trade. Maintenance of this fleet fell to the facilities at Commercial Wharf.
Crowleys partnership was dissolved in 1873 and their boatage role fell to
the Shropshire Union who subsequently acquired the Horseleyfields Wharf, as
well as Crowleys premises at the Crescent in Birmingham.

The Shropshire Union were effectively official carriers to the London &
North Western Railway. They retained the boatage service until 1922 when the
SU was disbanded. The boatage services passed to the LMS Railway and on
nationalisation British Railways.

Horseleyfields Boat Dock therefore has a long association with the railway
interchange trade and owes its present form to the Shropshire Union Railway
& Canal Carrying Co who also operated an extensive long distance trade.

The current state of the building is one of deterioration. The boardings put
up by BW to protect the entrance have been torn away. It remains a structure
under threat in a city noted for heritage features being destroyed by
arsonists.

Ray Shill
Industrial Historian