Historic England - Tom Rolt

Lionel Caswell Thomas Rolt, always known as plain Tom Rolt, was born in Chester.  He trained as a mechanical engineer, but is best known for his biographies of great civil engineers such as Brunel, Trevithick and Stephenson. He is also regarded as one of the pioneers of the leisure cruising industry on Britain’s inland waterways, living on a boat himself for 12 years.

Places to visit

Ellesmere Port Boat Museum
Explore the exhibits in the historic dock complex and experience life aboard the canal. Everything from large boats to canal company buttons tells the story of the waterways and the people who worked on them.

Canal boat holiday
Relax, slow the pace right down and discover what it was that Rolt loved so much about England's waterways by taking a canal boat holiday through the Cheshire countryside around his birthplace.