Hillmorton

 Today's Canal - Oxford

Although today was almost as grey as yesterday it was by no means as chilly. Fewer layers needed!

Soon after setting off we passed the remains of a former railway bridge - we will see several bits of the two railway lines that passed through Braunston until their closure. North-South ran the Great Central Railway whilst the one that ran East-West was called the Weedon and Leamington Line. The main freight use of the latter was to serve the huge cement works at Southam. The Great Central Railway was an extensive network but its main line ran from Marylebone in London northwards through Rugby, Leicester, Loughborough and Nottingham before branching out to many of the towns and cities in the industrial north.

Most of the accommodation bridges, built so that farmers and landowners could access land that was bisected by new canals, are here built to a standard pattern. This one is unusual in that the side parapets have been removed leaving only the main structure. To many an eye it may seem as if much of the strength of the bridge must have been taken away but, in reality, the purpose of the parapets was to prevent people and animals from straying over the edges. In a few cases, as farm machinery became larger, they were opened out so that farmers could drive across with this equipment.

Whilst this boat does not merit an entry into the Unusual Boat Gallery, its bijou size makes it stand out from the crowd.

CaRT recently responded to complaints about wide beam boats using the north Oxford Canal (which only has narrow locks) by limiting the canal's use to access to two marinas that are willing to accommodate them. They are supposed to notify of any such movements in advance and not to moor up to the towpath. Since then we have seen complaints that the notices are unreadable by being overgrown with vegetation. This one was certainly very visible but time will show whether the main problem is minimised.

The turnover bridge just before Braunston Junction is a splendid structure, whilst still being especially functional.

A gas bottle ran out a day ago and we also wanted to stock up on more Elsan blue at Midland Chandlers in Braunston. We managed the latter (we have always found their price to be the most competitive and we re-checked a couple of weeks ago) but they do not stock Calor Gas.

We now turned northwards and the half of the Oxford Canal that benefitted from extensive improvements in its heyday. A good few miles were cut from the journey by straightening out the contours that Brindley followed.

We passed this unusual pair of closely coupled boats - they looked all but identical but seemed to have no name. However, they must be rather afraid of running out of gas! Perhaps their engine runs on it.

We tried to take a photo of  Canal Barns - just because they looked interesting - but the shrubs kept getting in the way. However, a boat mooring did have an estate agent's board which we looked up on the internet. A substantial barn conversion, from several former farm buildings, is now a 3 or 4 bedroom home, on the market for offers over £900,000! If you think that is asking a lot, it is now sold STC. And even the agent admits that the kitchen needs upgrading.

We called in to Dunchurch Pools Marina for gas. Although they were very helpful and sold it at a reasonable price, it did take some time as both the service moorings were already occupied by a couple of boats (at least one of them was a marina moorer) who were in no obvious hurry and still there when we left!

One of the more striking improvements to the north Oxford made in the 1820's was Barby Straight. It runs for about 1.5 km - an unusual view from the sky in 1929 can be seen here.

At the northern end, these interesting characters keep watch.

From the canal, a range of former wharf and farm buildings at Tarry's Bridge look as if they have been attractively adapted. Disappointingly, when we looked at the view from the main road as shown on Google, most of the site is occupied by a rather untidy car sales business!

The housing development at Houlton, the new suburb of Rugby, begins even before we reach Hillmorton. Each time we pass there are more homes here - eventually the plan is for over 6500.

As we neared the top of the Hillmorton locks we kept a beady eye for the start of the queue - we had heard reports that it would be as lengthy as last year! Amazingly there was no queue at all and we were down in 35 minutes and all needed to be filled  before we could enter. There were just two volunteers lock keepers on the bottom locks. So far today they had helped 55 boats - Hillmorton is known as the busiest flight on the network.

We did not want to pass through Rugby today as we may well want to visit the Tesco store in Brownsover in the morning so we pulled in to a good mooring shortly after leaving the locks.

10.0 Miles - 3 Locks