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On its whey to a canal basin near you


For the past four and a half years Britain’s canals and rivers have been receiving their recommended daily allowance of calcium courtesy of the Cheese Boat, which cruises up and down the waterways selling specialist Welsh Cheeses.

The Cheese Boat idea was the brain child of Geraldine Prescott who, with her husband Michael, wanted a way to turn a passion for narrow boating into something profitable. After tasting the range of cheeses from the Snowdonia Cheese Company based in Rhyl, Geraldine decided that dairy was the way forward.

The award-winning Snowdonia Cheese Company was started over seven years ago with the belief that dairy farming is a strong custodian of our environment and countryside. Geraldine approached the company about her idea to sell their cheese from her boat at the side of the canal and Snowdonia thought it was brilliant. The Cheese Boat was born. Success came quickly to the boat of cheese and Caws Cenarth products were added to The Cheese Boat’s repertoire.

Try before you buy

Geraldine and Michael covered the canal system introducing Welsh cheese to anyone wishing to ‘Try Before You Buy’. The company’s motto invited everyone to try the cheese for free and, if they liked it, to buy the colourful wax truckles. People certainly liked the cheese, buying hundreds and hundreds of truckles in the Cheese Boat’s first year of operation.

After a couple of years of steady growth, the Prescotts found themselves in need of some help. Friends Helen and David Wanamaker from Vancouver, Canada rose to the occasion and came to England in June 2009 to build Cheese Boat 2.

Cheese Boat 2 started as an empty shell. Over the next nine months Helen and David fitted her out, installing state of the art electrics to keep all that cheese at just the right temperature and many other mod cons to make The Elizabeth Rose II (aka Cheese Boat 2) a very comfortable floating business. Since March of 2010 two Cheese Boats have cruised slowly through the British countryside bringing the taste of Welsh cheese to a wide audience.

Loyal customers

“We do surprise a lot of people who don’t expect to find us on the canal,” says Geraldine. “We also have a lot of very loyal customers who will travel to find us. Just this morning I had a call from a man who lived in West Brom who wanted to come and find us to stock up.”

Living and working with so much cheese would but a lot of people off of the product although Geraldine and Michael still indulge on a regular basis. The boats’ most popular cheese is the ‘Black Bomber’, although Geraldine favours the Red Devil and enjoys it with a baked potato and salad, while Michael is more partial to the cheese flavoured with leek and white wine.

To find out which part of the canals the boats are on at any given moment visit www.thecheeseboat.co.uk and check the ‘Where Are We Now’ page.

The progress of the two cheese boats can also be found on Waterscape’s events pages.

Last updated: 28/03/2011

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