MEMBERS of the public were given free canoe building tuition over the weekend and took their new boats out on the Middlewich canals.

The Saltscape project, which celebrates the heritage of Cheshire’s salt towns, ran a canoe building course from Thursday, August 6, to Sunday, August 9.

People taking part in the course paid £125 for the materials and got free tuition throughout the four days, and were able to keep their new canoes.

Saul Burton, who was the canoe building course leader, said: “It went very well, we had five canoes with some made individually and some with two or three working on them. We managed to get them all on the canals.

“I think a lot of people were very surprised at what they managed to achieve in just four days.

“They all said they had really enjoyed it and they couldn’t believe they could do something like that in such a short space of time.

“I’d like to say a great big ‘thank you’ to the guys at Andersen Boats. They let us use their boatyard and it was perfect. They lent us drills and stuff like that; they were an absolute god send.”

The idea of the canoe building course was to celebrate the boat building heritage of Middlewich and also to encourage more people to use the town’s waterways.

For more information on upcoming Saltscape events, visit saltscape.co.uk