Just before the St. Helens Rangers moved out of their cabin at Blackbrook, the premises were broken into - and our model Mersey Flat which was on display there was stolen.

The model was built for the Society with funds donated by Safeway Stores soon after their Hypermarket was opened at the Ravenhead terminus of the Sankey. It was commissioned by the Society from Peter Craven, a teacher at Gt. Sankey High School. It featured in a number of displays in the area before being loaned to St. Helens Rangers.

In the absence of an existing example of a Mersey flat, the model gave people an idea of the kind of craft for which the Sankey was built. Mounted in a cut-away model of the dry dock at Winwick, it also gave an impression of the size of these vessels compared with the much smaller modern narrow boats which people envisage whenever canals are mentioned. Being fully rigged, it also illustrated that the Mersey flat determined much of the way in which the canal was built, and of the engineering which followed during its history. Stephenson’s building of his high and massive Sankey Viaduct, swing bridges being built in other places where railways crossed its line, the distinctive bascule bridge at Sankey Bridges, the lifting bridge in St. Helens town centre, and the closure in 1931of the canal north of Newton Common Lock to allow fixed stone bridges to replace the limited-weight wooden swing bridges, all arose from the need for the vessels to be able to pass up and down the canal with their masts high.

Appeals in the local press, and across the world via the on-line Warrington-Worldwide, for the model’s return have so far yielded no results.