The Havengore barge was built for the Port of London Authority in 1956. It has long since been decommissioned and converted to a passenger carrying vessel. Its current owner has determined that the cost of renovating and running it is now beyond his reach and has been trying to sell it.
Cue pieces in the Times, Telegraph and Mail and comments from right-wing historians like Niall Ferguson
The barge has had another use. It was used to carry Winston Churchill’s coffin down the Thames in 1965 and has been used for various Royal occasion boat trips down the Thames since. It was sold into private hands in 1995 when it was presumably not regarded as something that needed to be saved for the nation, since it was at that point a 40 year old barge.
In 2023 with the hard right inventing traditions on a regular basis apparently the Havengore barge must be kept in Britain and put on public display…
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