Our Mission

The Kilsby Theatre Boat Project will restore and repurpose a dilapidated 108-year-old former Fellows, Morton and Clayton narrowboat, turning her into a unique and inspirational community theatre space. Volunteers will be involved in every stage of the project, assisting with practical work and learning about life and livelihoods on the Oxford Canal and the history of our waterways in general.

We hope this adventure will enrich and enthral the local community, by including artists, musicians, school children and the general public. The process will be as significant as the finished boat, uniting the water and land communities and giving people an opportunity to combine creatively. It will forge respect and friendships, educate people about local history and, we hope, bring the community closer together.

It is expected that when complete, Kilsby will take pride of place in the Jericho area of the Oxford Canal. She will be a beautifully preserved icon of the past, rebuilt by the community around her, with future-proof design choices to be cared for and enjoyed by generations of Kilsby fans to come.

The restored and reimagined Kilsby, a floating stage on the Oxford waterways, will leave a year-round legacy of The Oxford Canal Festival - a biennial celebration of all things Oxford Canal, that entertains, educates and inspires the community to enjoy their local waterways . In 2018 the festival raised £5000 towards the project, enough to kick-start the journey and let the Kilsby dream set sail!

Our Timeline

The restoration of Kilsby is underway, read on to find out more..

Kilsby was dilapidated and in sore need of repair. She was leaking, rotting and uninhabitable - but certainly not beyond hope.. Kilsby has a history (she's more than a century old) and with your help, a future. We want to save Kilsby for the community.

Here's how...

Kilsby’s past

(For more detail on Kilsby’s origins CLICK HERE to visit our chronology page)

Prior to the nationalisation of the waterways in 1948, Fellows, Morton and Clayton (FMC) was the largest and best known of the canal carriers. In 1912, FMC commissioned Braithwaite and Kirk of West Bromwich to build 24 iron composite butties (unpowered narrowboats with iron sides and elm bottoms to be pulled by a horse and later behind a boat with an engine) at £190 each - Kilsby was one of these commissions. Here she is, in 1923, nestled next to her partner boat, Japan.

In the 1930s Kilsby was still operating in the Birmingham area, now with partner boat, Pilot. For a period of time (perhaps 1940s) she was re-named ‘Helsby’ and used as a mud boat (MB No 4) on the Bridgewater Dept of the Manchester Ship Canal. Mud boats carry away the spoil dug out by dredgers.

In the 1970s she belonged to Clayton Brothers, who seem likely to have installed the residential wooden cabin. Kilsby came to Oxford in the early 1980s, and was part of a celebrated struggle to create permanent residential moorings along the city centre final ‘arm’ of the canal. Kilsby’s previous owner, Helen McGregor, bought her in 1993 and enjoyed almost three decades on her beloved Kilsby. Helen is an actor, writer and Kilsby’s biggest fan; she will be actively involved in her re-invention as a theatre.

In 1992 Helen wrote Feme Sole, a ‘narrowboat shaped’ poem that was published in 1995, achieving her lifelong ambition of becoming a published poet. Click on the link below to read the poem and bask in Helen’s account of her first days of life afloat.

Kilsby’s present

Kilsby has been safely delivered to Banbury and the cabin stripped bare, with the hard work of the Kilsby volunteer team and Tooley’s historic boatyard (read all about it via the blog tab, or check out the photos in the gallery). Her beautiful hull is ready and waiting for a new lease of life.

Kilsby’s future

We will restore Kilsby for the community. We want to involve local people in the project - from making her watertight, to deciding how the boat will operate, all the way through to the design and eventual rebuild. The Covid-19 crisis has certainly slowed down proceedings, but we have not cancelled the adventure. We have been busy harvesting ideas, concerns and enthusiastic suggestions from those who will use the boat, building a vision for how she will operate. This wishlist of ideas will inform the next stage; design, costing and drafting a schedule of works. 

An emergency grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund has allowed us to develop new ways of keeping the Kilsby story alive, providing opportunities for us to engage with current and future volunteers remotely, when the coronavirus pandemic prevents face-to-face interaction. The winter of 2020 saw a trio of virtual activities to inspire more people to join the Kilsby community. Carol singing, crafting and even a little socially distanced dancing down the towpath! Take a look at the film we made here!

After the restoration Kilsby, will be used as a performance and exhibition space, an exciting and unusual venue to host the wealth of talent that resides in and passes through the Oxford area, as well as promoting the heritage and stories of the Oxford Canal.

How can we make it happen?

… by collecting a bounty of great volunteers. We want to involve as many volunteers from the local community as we can, building on the hard work and enthusiasm of those who have already ensured that Kilsby has been saved from destruction. The journey towards the end goal is as important as the finished product. We want to get people together to build a place that is meaningful to the community.

But we do need a bit of cash too..

Based on the opinion of the highly respected professionals at Tooley’s boatyard in Banbury, we need around £70,000 in capital funds to restore and re-purpose Kilsby, and return her to the Oxford Canal. The Oxford Canal Festival raises money for the restoration, and we are always developing additional strategies for fundraising, keeping our eyes open for funding opportunities.

Click below to donate and keep our project chugging along!