'Mixed emotions' as Iona leaves Godalming for the last time

Godalming's horse-drawn packet boat, Iona, departed the Wharf for the last time this morning, pulled not by the huge French draft horses that became such an iconic part of Godalming life, but by a smaller boat.

She is heading for Tiverton, in Devon, where she is being given a home at the Tiverton Canal Co by friends of her owner, Jenny Roberts, and will be used to provide horse-drawn trips for tourists.

It has been a morning of mixed emotions for Jenny, who has shut up shop at the Godalming Packet Boat Company after abuse and aggression from people using the towpath made trips unpleasant.

She told Nub News last week that she had decided to close her business after 35 years, retire her beloved horses and find a new home for Iona.

As Iona was pulled away from the dock for the final time just after 8am, a small knot of wellwishers gathered to see her off. She is being towed by Andrew Hall, skippering his boat Leonard Leigh. Today she is heading for Weybridge, and will then go on to Reading, where she will be lifted out of the water by crane and loaded onto a lorry to be taken to the Great Western Canal, where she will be returned to the water to continue her journey to Tiverton.

"Sorry to see you go, we'll really miss you," says a man walking past with a dog on a lead. "You've been so good here."

Jenny told Nub News she was experiencing mixed emotions.

"I couldn't stand and watch her go," she said of her decision to accompany Iona down to Devon.

"But she's going to friends, and she's going to be horse-drawn. That's the whole point: she will continue doing what she was doing here."

Her departure signals the closure of the last horse-drawn boat service in south-east England: there are now only three in the country. The other two are at Newbury and Langollen. Iona, who began life in 1935 as a workhorse barge, has carried steel, coal and even lime juice in her lifetime. She is registered on the National Historic Ships Register.

"She's a little national treasure," says Jenny as she climbs aboard, ready to steer her away from the dock for the last time. "But it's time for her to move on and she's going to a good home - and they will look after her."