Fender Maker Ltd is a one-man cottage business situated Wales.

I used to live on the canals, starting at Rickmansworth on the Grand Union Canal in 1972. I was lucky enough to see some of the last working boats the company “Three Fellows Carrying Co”, were still carrying lime juice barrels from London up to Hemel Hempstead twice a week.

When I was younger, I was horse drawn (see Gallery page), training on the Hostel boat the butty “Pamela” as horse boy. This gave me experience in working with rope and moving heavy boats through locks, maintaining the Fenders etc. Later, I bought a wooden “Joey” boat from British Steel in an open auction for £350, that was when they just finished carrying steel tubes in the Black Country, just before they sold their fleet off, and I ran No 3 as a horse boat traveling the Canal system selling my rope Fenders, see my gallery page

I moved to Wales nearly 6 years ago, after running the “Fender Maker Shop” near Banbury on the Oxford Canal for ten years.

I have built up my business over the last 35 years gaining training from such people as Alf Langford and some ex working boatmen who had retired from carrying cargo as the canal system changed from working boats to pleasure boats. It was great talking to them about the old horse drawn boat days, and how they handled rope and tied their knots, and also how they made their Fenders.

Alf also taught me to tie Turk’s heads, Swans Necks, cabin strings, cross straps, snubbers, and all the other decorative rope work that was used on the working narrow boats that traveled the canals. Also I was lucky enough to meet Auther Bray a few times. He showed me how he made Tipcats over a wooden barrel one afternoon at Braunston on his narrow boat "Raymond". The first boatman to show me how to make Button fenders was Ron Aldridge from another old boating family. He showed me on my mother’s old boat the “Heatherbell”, which is a wooden motor boat that was built at Nursers yard at Braunston at the turn of the last centaury. Pete Flockheart now makes fenders at the old blacksmiths forge in the marina there.

I also had many long conversations with Ron Wilson from the "Wilson" boating family, who often used to visit my “Get Knotted” shop in Warwick on the Grand Union canal, and I still make fenders for his son. At that time some of the Ward brothers used to come and buy rope off me for there excellent Fenders. They were from a number one boating family, which had settled around Coventry like many ex boaties working in the car factories there, when the commercial carrying had ceased.

Various Rope FendersThe tools I use are hand made, from wood & steel fids, marlinspikes & mallets etc. The Fender covering is half hitched starting with a round turn about the center, usually with 12mm diameter rope tapering down to 10mm rope at the finish. Often a "Turks Head" (a sort of never ending plat) is added to look really smart. Fenders usually wear out before they rot but we use waterproofed rope anyway.