Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Looking down the canal with the spire of Kings Sutton church rising out of the mist
.
The canal drops down through Louse or Isis Lock, originally built wide beam but now nar-
rowed, below an ornate iron roving bridge of 1796. At a brick headwall there was a further
lock to the river, Armchair Weir, but it had only a single gate and was wasteful of water.
Crossing Castle Mill Stream, it is possible to proceed up the Sheepwash Channel to the River
Thames or Isis opposite the Tumbling Bay bathing place. This route formed part of the im-
proved Liverpool to London link as the Thames was in poor condition upstream to the Duke's
Cut. A local improvement was the decision to fix a swing railway bridge in the open position
in 1984. Until then, railway crews had to unbolt the track every time a boat wanted to pass. In
1995 the station, which features on the opening page of
Zuleika Dobson
, had the proud boast
that improved security had reduced the number of thefts from its car park over the year from
46 to a mere 16. Oxford is usually taken to be the ford where oxen crossed but it may be sig-
nificant that the Old English for salmon was
ehoc
. Confusingly, the River Ock is downstream
at Abingdon.
Over 2,000 years ago, Lud had the realm of southern England measured and discovered
that Oxford was at the exact centre. St Frideswide built a monastery in 727 and began the
walled town. In 912 Oxford was used by Edward the Elder as a buffer between Wessex and
the invading Danes. It was the sixth-largest town in England in 1066 and it was still the fifth-
largest in 1781. Oxford Castle was built in 1071 for William the Conqueror by Robert d'Oilly
and includes a Saxon stone tower. Empress Matilda escaped from the castle and King Steph-
en's seige by crossing the frozen Thames dressed in white one snowy night in 1142. It was
Charles I's headquarters in the Civil War and Cromwell and Hitler both planned to make
it their capital. In 1996 the prison was converted to a more welcoming hotel and shopping
centre.
