Stour Lighters operated on the River Stour from 1705 until the early part of this century carrying cargo up and down the river including bricks, grain, flour, manure and coal.

Most of the boats were made in a dry dock or Basin at Flatford, although others were built on a boatyard at the top end of the former Gasworks Cut near the RST's premises. Sadly, its remains were destroyed in September 1997. However, the Basin at Flatford was restored to full working order by the National Trust with assistance from the River Stour Trust in the late 1980's. John Constable's famous landscape painting ‘Boat Building at Flatford’ (c.1815) shows a lighter under construction.

The lighters are unique in that they operated in pairs, being permanently shackled bow to stern, rather in the style of an articulated lorry, with the rear lighter being used as a rudder for the pair. The stern vessel had a single hold with a small cabin at the back. Each boat measured approximately 10 feet wide and 46 feet long with a depth of 2.8 feet and was able to carry a load of 13 tonnes. The total 26 tonnes of cargo were towed by a single horse, which was trained to leap on and off the foredeck whenever the towpath changed from one bank to the other.

John Constable is well known for his paintings that depict incidents in the working life of the River Stour during the early 1820s. ‘The White Horse’ (c. 1819) shows a horse being ferried across the river and was a critical success.

The crew consisted of a captain and a horseman, often a young lad, who would urge the horse to jump over a barrier on the towpath as shown in John Constable’s ‘The Leaping Horse’ (c.1825).

The journey from Sudbury to the estuary normally took about 2 days, with an overnight stop halfway at Horkesley where a special bothy or bunkhouse was provided for the lightermen. The lighters continued upstream to Sudbury until the 1914-1918 War, when fearful of a German invasion, it was decided to scuttle the entire Sudbury fleet of 14 lighters in Ballingdon Cut. However, two separately owned lighters continued to operate on the lower part of the river until about 1938, when they were abandoned.

On of the lighters (No.13) was recovered in the 1970's by members of the River Stour Trust and was later the subject of a year long job creation scheme, when it was finally restored by a gang of 5 previously unemployed men.

On 22nd June 2010, the lighter was lifted gently from the silt near Great Cornard Lock to begin the next stage of its life (follow link). This is now undergoing restoration by the Pioneer Sailing Trust who have been contracted to do the work under the 'Managing a Masterpiece' scheme for the Stour Valley. The Pioneer Sailing Trust restored the 70ft 1^st Class Fishing Smack, Pioneer, from a wrecked state to a beautiful seagoing vessel that now provides trips. Likewise, the restoration of the John Constable Lighter will ensure that it is modified to carry passengers for trips on the river. The lighter will therefore be able to fund its own maintenance programme as well as promote the history and modern day use of the River Stour Navigation. It is planned to operate the lighter by electric propulsion to avoid the necessity of employing a horse to pull it along.