Stoneton

 Today's Canal - Oxford

The downward trend in the weather continued with more greyness and .cooler temperatures. there were a few times when we could feel dampness in the sir but no actual rain arrived.

This next section we have done many times before, including just two days later in the season last year. It is far from dull and certainly not boring but it does get a little harder to find new things along the way to talk about. It is also less busy than 2020 (but that was one of the few almost unrestricted times when nearly everyone took advantage of a staycation. The volunteer lock keeper at Claydon said that yesterday they had around 30 boats almost 25% down on what we heard last year. Nevertheless on this contour canal (meaning it is almost continuous bends!) there are few moments for the steerer to daydream.

We had moored just before the entrances to Cropredy Marina. Last year, we noticed that extensive earthworks were underway to create a third basin for this ;popular marina. The moorings are now complete and boats have started to move in - as we could just about see, peering over the hedge.

We had delays at each of the first three locks - there is a medium length pound in between them. The first was Broadmoor Lock and its is all but obligatory to mention when passing this way to say that those was where we first saw Take Five, our previous boat which got us back into boat ownership after a gap of  nearly forty years. In the intervening period our circumstances meant that we were restricted to a hire boat.

We spotted this tiny boat yesterday in Cropredy and almost included it in our Unusual Boats Gallery, but forgot about it! In the first queue Mike chatted to the single hander (plus dog). Turns lout that the boat belongs to a friend as also does the dog and he is dog-sitting for a few days whilst friend is busy at work. The boat came as compensation! The boat was originally a lifeboat for a Dutch ship and was too large to fit in narrow locks. The friend works at a boatyard and in his spare time converted it, including cutting out the middle - lengthways. We have never heard of the narrowing of a boat before, although lengthening an shortening are not uncommon.

At Elkington's Lock there is a small hit which would not doubt, with an open fire, have kept the lock keeper warm in winter whilst waiting for boats to arrive. He (and it would almost certainly have been a he originally although many women worked on the boats in later years) could have kept a lookout or arrivals from downstream through an open door but what about seeing those coming downstream?

The answer was a small window! Seeming the only one to let light in)

We arrived at the bottom of the five lock Claydon flight about half past ten but it was half an hour later before we could stat our ascent. As well as two or three somewhat slow boats ahead of us, there was a steady flow of boats coming down and sometimes it was necessary to wait awhile to take turns.

At Middle Lock we did see the volunteer lock keeper - he was on his own today - but he quickly went up to the top lock to see how the queue there was managing before walking back down to his hut.

The Claydon flight is locked at night as a water conservation measure. Although this is well publicised with plenty of notices at locks and elsewhere, it is unfortunate that there are two slightly different versions of it. One simply requires boaters to clear the flight by 6pm whilst the other says that they will not be admitted after 4.30.

After completing the flight it was still too early for a lunch stop so we continued to Fenny Compton (the narrow parts of the former Fenny Tunnel gave some inexperienced boaters 'fun') where we might have taken on water but a boat was occupying it, but not using the water point!

Bridge 143 is known as Hay Bridge, we don't know why as the fields around were full of straw not hay (!) but is ties fin with the name of the farm just around the corner called Haybridge Wharf Farm. What puzzles us is that the farm is not marked on any of he old or modern OS maps but the wharf is evident in the picture.

Boundary Lift Bridge (normally open) takes its name from being almost exactly on the boundary between Warwickshire and Oxfordshire.

At Bridge 139 there is a signpost to the D'Arcy Dalton Way footpath (sorry but we missed ta,king a closer picture!). The LDWA web site tells us that W P d'Arcy Dalton worked for many years to preserve rights of way in Oxfordshire. It starts very close to this point (although just into Warwickshire) at Wormleighton Reservoir and ends near Swindon.

We had a late but lengthy lunch break and did not set off again until almost four by which time extra layers were definitely needed. Ahead was the long and meandering summit pound that is immediately recognisable as the work of James Brindley who was a pioneer canal surveyor and engineer but who lived before the development of the capability of excavating deep cuttings or building significant embankments and so had to follow the natural contours of the land.

We eventually pulled in for the night at, as it happens, exactly the same mooring spot as last year!

11.0 Miles - 8 Locks