A Museum Mooring

We decided to leave Paddington and stop the night at the canal museum to break the long journey to the River Lee. They charge £8 ($12) and water and electric hook up is included plus very secure moorings. Best to book in advance as space is limited.
The boat we are moored alongside of is a 1937 working boat named Tarporley, that is now a community boat.
I hope when we departed at 8am on a Sunday morning we didn`t wake anyone around the basin.

The canal museum building was once an ice house and it is shown on the map above close to the lower right of the basin.                             It once had stables either side but the building was re-built in 1904 and the stables were on the first floor.

There was room for about 15 horses plus a much larger corner stall for a sick horse to have more comfort.
When you look at the map of the basin and all the different industries you see stone, timber, flour, iron and coal as pretty normal boat cargoes. Then you notice Manure dealer!  The thing is back in the 1890`s it was estimated some 300,000 horses kept London moving. That`s a lot of S manure.
They were used to pull Omnibuses and delivery vans, the police used them as did undertakers and carriers of all descriptions. Altogether a lot of horse power.