Profiles: Company profiles
Gallows Bridge Boatyard
Big Boys' Toys
Tony Jones visits Gallows Bridge Boatyard & Moorings in Shipley on the Leeds & Liverpool to find out why the business is building a reputation for the big jobs
“There’s always a crowd!” laughs Aaran Laylor, owner of Gallows Bridge Boatyard & Moorings, as another boat is lifted out of the water onto a waiting truck. Indeed, when I was moored there during the Covid lockdowns, the towpath would always be teeming with gongoozlers every time a boat came out. “We lifted 12 boats out in a single day last week!” exclaimed Bren Snr, as I watched the crane at work. “It was mental busy!”
There are few, if any, other places on this stretch of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal where boats can be taken out of the water for road transportation, and the business has been busy with this type of work since the crane was installed in April 2020. But this popular boatyard’s story began a little earlier than that.
Transformation
The facilities have come a long way since the Laylor family (Aaran, his brother Bren Jnr and their father Bren Snr) took over the site almost five years ago. The boys immediately got to work removing 250 tons of fly-tipping which had been dumped there, along with 100 tons of rubble and rubbish that was actually in the canal. Since then the family has installed electricity, water and paving to create on-line moorings for around 15 boats.
The main building on the site is still derelict, although there are plans to renovate it in the future. Built in 1758, it even predates the canal, with one of the house’s windows reputedly used as the toll booth for the adjacent, but now defunct, Bradford Canal. Rumour has it that the building was once a brothel and speakeasy, and it certainly appeared inhabited in aerial photos as recently as the 1980s. Sadly it was gutted by fire shortly before the Laylor family bought the site and remains in a sorry state awaiting its rebirth sometime soon.
Still, anyone comparing Gallows Bridge today to its condition just a few years ago would be amazed by the transformation. In addition to the moorings, the boys have also landscaped a substantial area of the adjacent yard to accommodate around 14 boats on hardstanding, created from 130 tons of substrate and 140m² of concrete. There are also plans for a modest chandlery and a canalside café, along with an expansion of the company’s hire-boat business which began on a small scale after the lockdown restrictions ended.
Heavy lifting
It’s the steelwork being done on the site that is creating a buzz among the boaters in the area, however. “Our main business is engineering for the petrochemical industry, so we’re well used to working with heavy machinery and big lumps of metal,” explains Aaran. “I guess that’s why we’re in our element with big welding jobs.”
Since my partner and I left Gallows Bridge for our summer cruising adventures in April 2021, the boys have also installed lifting machinery which enables them to safely and easily undertake overplating and steel replacement jobs. During my visit for this feature, a boat was having a replacement baseplate fitted, with welders scooting around the job on reclined car seats modified with wheels.
The Gallows Bridge boys certainly seem at home and happy with all this heavy lifting and machinery.
