Canalway Cavalcade
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Award winners 2006
Last up-dated 12 April
2007
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maintained by Mike Stevens.
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WHAT IS CANALWAY CAVALCADE?
 Canalway Cavalcade is a major
event organised by IWA each year since 1983, nowadays always over the early May
Bank Holiday weekend. It combines a boat rally with a trade show and a wide
range of activities and entertainments and claims the title of London's premier
waterway event.
Seen by many waterway enthusiasts in the South East as
marking the beginning of the rally season, it is one of the largest gatherings
of inland waterway boats apart from those that carry the "National" label.
We pride ourselves that we give the boaters more to do than
they get at many other rallies : that's why we're so popular with them. In each
year recently, well over 100 boats, sometimes nearly 150, have taken part,
mooring in or adjacent to the Pool of Little Venice in Paddington, the junction
of the Regent's Canal and the Paddington Branch of the Grand Union Canal. The
event and the moorings also spread down the section of canal leading towards
Paddington Basin. Boats regularly attend not only from the Greater London area,
but from the River Wey in Surrey, the Kennet and Avon Canal in Berkshire, the
Lee and Stort on the Essex/Hertfordshire border, from many places on the Grand
Union Canal as far as Birmingham and at times from as far as Runcorn,
Cheshire.
We have always had a representation of historic narrowboats,
and in recent years this has been particularly good. It is the one time each
year when the Pool is at its best, choc-a-bloc with boats of all kinds :
narrowboats (historic and modern), cruisers and even a few barges.
In recent years so many boats have taken part that the canal
westwards of the Pool has also been lined with boats for some distance. It maks
a splendid venue for photography, as well as for those people who just like
looking at boats.
 Boating events at Canalway Cavalcade include
the Pageant of decorated boats (Saturday afternoon), the procession of
illuminated boats (Sunday evening) and a boat-handling competition (various
times during Sunday and Monday) : fun for boaters to join in and for others to
watch. The opening ceremony is at 2pm on Saturday and the prizes are awarded on
Monday lunchtime. In most years we also include canoe displays.
There is also a lively Trade & Craft Show which is
popular with exhibitors and customers alike. Many of our exhibitors and traders
come back year after year.
Visitors and boaters alike can enjoy a wide range of musical
and theatrical entertainments, as well as a series of children's activities
which reach their peak with the Teddy Bears' Picnic on the Sunday afternoon.
The puppet-theatre barge
May Brent spends each winter at Little Venice, is with us for
Canalway Cavalcade and always puts on a special show for the event,
several times a day throughout the weekend. The Pool is also the home of Alex
& Jan Prowse's Cascade Art Gallery.
Boat trips are available : the London Waterbus Company (
020 7482 2660) operates from the Pool itself and Jason's Trip (
020 7286 3428) from a little to the West.
The site is open to the public from 10am to 7pm on Saturday
and Sunday, 10am to 6pm on Monday, and parts of it are open on Sunday evening
for the illuminated boats event, for which the raised pavements round the Pool
provide a splendid amphitheatre. Admission for visitors is free, but they are
encouraged to buy a programme and/or make a contribution to our campaign funds.
For visitors coming by land Caqnalway Cavalcade is
conveniently situated between Paddington and Warwick Avenue tube stations, with
direct access onto the site from Paddington Station.
 In addition to the public parts of the event there
are private events for the boaters, traders and helpers in the evenings: the
pattern of these changes each year. These are private events not open to the
public. They are held in the vicinity of our Bar Tent, which is open to the
public in the day and to boaters, traders and helpers in the evenings.
Canalway Cavalcade attracts huge numbers of the
general public, especially if the weather's good : one year the police estimate
of attendance on the Sunday alone was 12,000. It's really three events in one :
a boat rally for the boaters, a street festival for the local residents and a
major tourist attraction. All three groups seem to enjoy themselves.
The event is run entirely by volunteers: as well as our
Committee and other helpers who beaver away all the year round (one year's
event is already being planned before the previous one has started), we are
fortunate to have the services of the Kent and East Sussex Canal Restoration
Group as our site crew. In recent years we have also had help from Tideway
Adventurers, a South-London-based youth group.
Canalway Cavalcade benefits from financial
assistance and sponsorship in kind from a number of organisations, notably
British Waterways and the City of Westminster .
  The Inland Waterways Association
was founded in 1946 to work for the retention, restoration and development of
the inland waterways of England and Wales. It believes that canals and
navigable rivers should be used for commercial and leisure boating as well as
for such pursuits as angling and towpath walking. It campaigns for these uses
and for the preservation of the ecological, heritage and architectural aspects
of the waterway environment. It is a registered charity. Through its
subsidiary, the Waterway Recovery Group, it is heavily involved in the
restoration of derelict waterways. Another subsidiary is National Waterways
Festivals Ltd, under whose auspices a large number of national and local events
are organised.
IWA's London Region, which ran Canalway Cavalcade
until 2000, covers the area of the London Boroughs and has about 10% of IWA's
national membership. The Region was formed in 1993 and took over the
organisation of Canalway Cavalcade from London Branch, which had run it until
then. This was in anticipation of London Branch's re-organisation as a number
of smaller Branches, which was completed in 1995.
In 2001 Canalway Cavalcade was given national
status, and its organisers were responsible to IWA Council. Now it is
responsible to National Waterways Festivals, a subsidiary body of the IWA.
The profits from Canalway Cavalcade are given to
IWA which passes them on as donations to waterways causes, mainly restoration
groups or projects and waterway-based community groups. In addition to the
money made by the event itself, a number of other waterway groups benefit from
having fund-raising stands at the event.
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