The Spirits of Tooley’s

Sally of nb Craftybird finds out about the ghostly goings-on at the historic Banbury boatyard

In asking to meet with Matt Armitage, the managing director at Tooley’s Boatyard, I had no particular plan in mind about what our conversation might cover. The last time we had met (at Banbury Canal Festival) he had briefly mentioned a little booklet he had written about some of the inexplicable occurrences he and staff at Tooley’s have experienced over the years.

I resolved to obtain a copy of the booklet, having not managed to do so to date, and to find out more about the stories of the spirits.

Matt and I walked through the shop and the museum, waving hello to Candy who was manning the front desk, to a room at the back where we sat facing each other across a table. 

Ghostly caretakers

We launched into one of the most fascinating conversations I have ever had.

“Late at night,” he said, “you’ll hear footsteps in the museum, or someone walking off towards the back office. You go to look and, of course, there’s nobody there.”

He added: “It’s not scary. It’s like they’re keeping an eye on us – making sure we’re doing things right.”

Tooley’s, founded around 1778 on the Oxford Canal in Banbury, is the oldest continuously working dry dock in the world. Narrowboats come to the boatyard for blacking and maintenance just as they did in Georgian times. The same bricks, the same tools, even (broadly) the same bitumen mix are in use today. 

“When you’re down in the dock, you can almost feel the generations behind you,” said Matt. “It is very atmospheric.”

The incident

Of course, Tooley’s staff have their own thoughts on whether there’s more going on than meets the eye at the boatyard, but there’s one story that they all agree about, which Matt refers to as “the incident”.

Not so long ago historic narrowboat Hardy, salvaged by Tooley’s, was brought to the dry dock for some extensive work. The team found three large holes in its wooden hull that would need oak patches. Unfortunately there was no oak to be found anywhere around the site, so the dock was locked and everyone left for the night. 

When they came back in the morning, three practically perfect oak boards were lying next to the hull beside each of the holes to be fixed. 

“No one could’ve got in,” Matt stated. “We were all a bit spooked. But they fitted with barely any shaping required. It was as if someone had left them for us.”

You can buy a copy of Echoes of the Past for £5 by contacting Tooley’s directly.

This is an extract from the article in the 'On The Cut' section that appears in Waterways World February 2026