Like it or loathe it, the colourful canal art known as Roses and Castles has decorated boats since the mid 1800s. This artwork has almost become synonymous with English canals, even though it did not arrive until many years after the canal system had been operational. Canal boats had distinct liveries in order to distinguish one company from another at a time when many people were still illiterate. Boats often had decorative bow adornments such as the white bow flash with the stylised red heart and cluster of roses on the Samuel Barlow Coal Company boats. Another later design, used from the 1920s by Fellows Morton Clayton Ltd, had a blue and green bow flash bordered in white, but with a bold yellow disc in the centre. Similar patterns are still seen or referenced in various forms on modern boats today, and many other decorations we still see often have their origins in the past. Various parts of the boat would have had colourful decorations including, in particular, the big wooden rudder (known as the ram's head) and tiller of the butty. The exterior decoration on the back cabin doors would also have been particular to each trading company, again for identification.
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