Helen had seen an offer on at Waterstone's yesterday so decided to pop back into town to purchase it, and a couple of other things before we left. We had woken up to rain but it had cleared by the time we had finished breakfast.
The canyon that is now Banbury further dwarfs Tooley's boat yard, and makes one think of Birmingham now. We had a quiet night but I wonder what it would be like on a Friday or Saturday. A head popped up as we were working the lock and asked us not to close the gates as they were on the water and ready to come up. We swapped with them for a quick top up.
Several times during the day I have spotted isolated rocks by the side of the tow path. I could not decipher anything written on them but I assume that they are old milestones as they have that size and shape.
Twyford Mill was originally powered by water from the River Cherwell. It is now a big fertilizer factory and visible from afar,nit quite as far as the spire of Kings Sutton Church though
Kings Sutton Lock is attractive with it ironstone faced lock cottage and on the other side of the lock was an old blacksmith's forge and stable block
This is the bottom of Kings Sutton Lock, the landing and access to the left in the photo above is so high I couldn't understand how it would be used by boatmen to leave or board their boats at the lock. And if that wasn't what it was for, what was its purpose?
There were nine lift bridges today and eight of them were open to navigation.
This was the bridge that carried the Banbury and Cheltenham Railway. It was open throughout in 1887 and its main function was to carry iron ore from the East Midlands to South Wales. It was bought by Great Western Railway in 1896, and in the end it was closed in 1969. The arches to the right are over the River Cherwell and show just how close to the canal it often is, but isn't often seen.
Under the M40 bridge on the way to Nell Bridge Lock is this light plaque remembering Paul Hill who died during the construction of the motorway.
It is interesting to see the lifting bridge of a design original to the time the canal was built, with the M40 behind. Different times.
At various places around the system are signs asking you not to do things like run your engine, light your stove,moor, or fish. These signs de-marked the land of a house on the off side. I wonder why C&RT and their predecessors would do this? Do the property owners have pay for the privilege to alter the by-laws for individual cases,. I suppose that if you ignored the signs you would be not following a ruling by the C&RT so would be liable to a sanction. It seems strange when it didn't say you couldn't moor there!
As I was waiting for a boat at Nell Bridge Lock it makes a nice scene with the old warehouse and lift bridge. We were travelling slowly behind a boat that we caught up at every lock and were therefore delayed. At the bottom of the lock is a road bridge and there is no towpath through so you have to cross what is a main road with very fast traffic. In 1904 the road wasn't quite as big but the boatmen were running the boat horse rope over the bridge to start the boat out of the lock. This caused a severe accident when a young man on a motorbike came hurtling down the road and was nearly garroted by the rope. Apparently there was a pulley on the parapet that was supposed to take the rope, but for some reason boatmen didn't want, or like to use it.
Despite the signs saying to watch for the strong flow warnings as the River Cherwell crossed the canal just before Anyo Weir Lock I didn't see them at either end of the river stretch. There was little flow, so all was well. Anyo Weir Lock is diamond shaped to increase the amount of water that will be sent down to Somerton Deep Lock but when the water levels in the river section are low I would say there wasn't full compensation even so.
In 1869 Souldern Wharf was a busy place handling hay, straw, road stone and coal under the auspices of Charles John Clifford. They had coal from Moira, Swadlincote, Shipley, Wyken and Polesworth and could get it from many other places on request. It just goes to show that coal wasn't all the same.
Before Somerton Deep Lock I spotted a kingfisher who was obliging enough to sit on a twig just about long enough for me to take a hurried snap.
If you haven't been 'up North' a 12' lock must seem very deep, but on the Sheffield canal and Aire and Calder and others there are lots that are deep. The canal cottage here has just been for sale and is under offer at the moment for £400,000. 2 bedrooms, no access, cesh pit, no electricity, not water, other than filtered and treated canal water (of which you can have unlimited supply it says, but not for drinking). Heating is from a solid fuel stove and bottled gas. There is no road access but there is a little narrow boat and a 64' mooring thrown in. There was a very noisy generator banging away as we passed, but could be an off grid haven I suppose.
I noticed that after Somerton there were gates on the towpath that reminded me of the old River Trent Towing path that has gates across to delineate fields and prevent stock wandering. I suppose the area has water meadows on the tow path side so stock would be able to wander along the tow path and get lost if there weren't gates.
At Heyford Common Lock we had lost the slow boat ahead of us but out of nowhere came across a slow lady single hander at the lock. There had been little bits of rain after about 2pm but it wasn't until about 3:30 that I had to put a coat on, and then it stopped more or less. We kept going as we hadn't got quite as far as we wanted.The lady kept going to. She said she was stopping at Lower Heyford but didn't. She graciously let us go ahead before Dashwoods Lock so we decided to crack on whilst it wasn't raining.
The crew were getting quite rebellious by the time we got to Northbrook Lock and she hid the windlasses, saying enough was enough. We found a spot soon after and moored up at 18:15 after around 8 hours underway. We have actually done more than we had planned despite the slow going so another log day tomorrow will have us in Oxford tomorrow night I hope.
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