MORE than 3,500 years ago, a small group of Bronze Age sailors set out in their primitive wooden vessel on a journey that would prove to be the boat's last.

It was carrying roughly squared blocks of stone, probably for the construction of a causeway by the River Trent.

However, it failed to reach its destination, for reasons which will be forever unknown.

But now the boat is about to complete that final journey - after a diversion which took it north to York.

The vessel, a ten-metre dugout made from a single oak, was rediscovered during quarrying in Derbyshire in June 1998.

Excited archaeologists even found some of the cargo on board and the the boat was carefully lifted in one-metre sections from the gravel beds where it lay.

Since then, the boat has been undergoing a complex process of conservation, stabilisation and reconstruction at York Archaeological Trust's wood laboratory.

The trust's head of conservation, Jim Spriggs, said yesterday: "As well as the largest, this is also about the oldest piece of wood we have conserved at the York laboratories.

"The project has not been without its challenges, but we are delighted with the results.

"Studying the boat has given us a clear impression of the type of oak tree that formed part of the wild wood that once covered this country."

The painstaking treatment has involved immersing the boat sections in a water-soluble polymer to replace some of the wood's cellular matter lost through bio-degradation during years of burial.

After about two years of being immersed in a tank, the boat sections were dried in the trust's vacuum freeze-drier unit - a process which took about eight weeks per load.

Finally, the delicate work of preparing the boat for display began - a meticulous project which involved joining sections, stabilising cracks, re-fixing fragments, surface cleaning and consolidation.

Now, it is ready to complete its final journey and is heading back to Derbyshire, where it will go on permanent display at Derby Museum and Art Gallery from March.