A woman forced to close her horse-drawn boat trip business because of abuse and aggression from strangers says she is 'very sad' at having to shut up shop.

Jenny Roberts told Nub News that she had taken the decision to shut down the Godalming Packetboat Company after 35 years when the abuse she got from people using the towpath became too much.

Now her horses have been retired and Iona, the packet boat she used for her daytrips, has been sold.

The news has brought an outpouring of support and sadness on social media. But Jenny says: "No-one is sadder than me, because I have been doing it for 35 years."

Jenny and her horses have been a familiar sight along the River Wey, pulling Iona, for three and a half decades.

But Jenny says that 'snowflakes' who do not understand the nature of the business have accused her of animal cruelty. Add to that the people who refuse to step back to allow the horses to pass, and journeys have become too stressful, she says.

"It's been getting worse over the last couple of years," she said.

The large number of people using the area for recreation, playing on inflatables and manouevering boats about in the water, and crowding the towpath, means she can't operate her boat safely.

"I can't run safely, and if I can't run safely then I can't run," she said.

Jenny says that, while people who were too impatient to stand back quietly and wait while the boat passed are nothing new, it's the number of people who confronted her each time she took Iona out that became the problem.

"I get people shouting things like 'that's really cruel, what are you doing to those horses?'.

"But they don't understand: it's an easy pull for a horse. I could pull that boat, it's on water so it's not heavy. It's much easier for the horses than somebody riding them. It's far less strain.

"These are big heavy horses, that's what they are bred for."

Jenny recites a litany of bad behaviour she has seen on the towpath.

"People come up beside you on their bikes, ringing their bells, people's dogs come flying at you. Joggers don't hear you when you ask them to keep away from the horses because they are wired for sound."

"There are too many people along the towpath now, and they are so impatient: 'I need to get through with my pushchair. I'm going to report you to the council'": both comments that have been made to her recently.

"Someone even tried to push one of my horses out of the way. He got both hands on the horse and tried to push him. He ended up with his earphones in the hedge and threatening to report us."

But she has had to bite her tongue when people have been inconsiderate, she says.

"If you get stressed the horses get stressed.

"I love my horses to bits, and if anybody accuses me of being cruel to them it really hurts."

Iona has also suffered at the hands of vandals, with mud splattered on her while she was moored up at the Wharf. And Jenny even caught a couple of teenagers clinging to the back of her lorry as she transported her horses home at the end of one day.

"There comes a time when you think you just can't do it any more," she says.

The Godalming Packet Boat Company and its equine workers had become famous over the years, with coach parties coming from all over the country to enjoy a trip on the river.

The two-hour trips, which ran from Easter to the end of September, would take visitors from the wharf at Godalming to the weir at Unstead.

"When i first started I could do three trips a day, but later I was finding one a day was enough. I stopped running on bank holidays and Sundays because of the number of people on the towpath," she says.

"We have had people come all the way from Rochdale to visit, and then afterwards they went into Godalming and had a look round and spent their money in the shops and restaurants. All that has stopped."

Jenny's horses have become stars in their own right over the years too, with appearances in television programmes including Inspector Morse, and The Victorian Farm, as well as in the second Railway Children film with Jenny Agutter.

When they retire they stay with Jenny. "I have had several horses and they have all been wonderful," she says. "I have been lucky to have them."

Iona herself has a long and interesting history: built in 1935, she has served as an industrial workhorse herself across the years. She has hauled coal, steel and even lime juice in her time.

"It's a bit of industrial heritage," says Jenny. "When Henry Stevens gave the Wey Navigation to the National Trust he wanted it kept open for horse-drawn traffic."

She will be sad to see Iona go when she heads to Tiverton next week.

"I have had 33 years on that boat, I know every single inch of her. She's a piece of industrial heritage, and I have found a good home for her. She's going to some very good friends of mine, so I shall still be able to see her."

Jenny has enjoyed her time on the river, she says, until recently.

"But I'm not going to put my horses through it any more."