We had planned to stay on the Oxford/GU sections for a couple of weeks. But we had a phone call from some friends who have moved to live close to the Oxford Canal, between Cropredy & Banbury. So we decided to wind (turn around) and head their way for a few days.
The Oxford Canal’s towpath is dreadfully eroded, narrow & uneven in most places. We passed some lads piling a long section, you can hear the thumping noise a good way away.
I’d had a water buffalo milk ice cream at the Long Itchington beer festival, which was lovely, in addition there were buffalo burgers, but we’d eaten before we went. We’d brought some of the cheese in a village store & that’s nice too. As we ascended Napton locks, we saw the buffaloes grazing in the fields.
Because the locks on the Oxford Canal are narrow, I took the boat up, as John’s brave enough to step over the bottom gates. I would have to walk around the lock to shut them.
We’ve read about the manual lift bridges on this canal, they have a balance beam, which appears similar to a lock. This bridge is fastened in the up position (thank goodness). Our pals on nb Free Spirit recently wrote on their blog, about helping someone who couldn’t get one of these bridges down.
These southern canals are far busier than our old favourite, the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. By the time we’d got to the top of Napton locks there was a queue of 6 boats to go down and within a short distance we passed another 8 or so heading for the queue!!!!
The Oxford Canal is one of the oldest in the south and follows the contours for 11 miles at the top of Napton locks. However, as the crow flies, it’s only 4 miles. !!! It is a VERY twisty, turny route, with lots of sharp bends, usually where there’s a bridge. I took my spinning to the front, so I could peer as far ahead as I could.
As we were arriving in Cropredy our friend phoned and invited us for dinner. They picked us up for the evening. Cropredy is such a pretty little village, with local stone & thatched cottages.
We tried both the pubs and prefer The Red Lion, a good old-fashioned boozer. We had a lovely lunch there with our friends and her sister at the weekend.
The other pub, the Brasenose Arms is a glorious old building, but we feel the interior décor has ripped the life out of it and there were only 3 tables for ‘drinkers’, the rest of the place regimentally set for dinners. John felt a bit uneasy in the gents and closed the door as he went in, but the way the door opened, toilet goers would be on full view of those in the corridor!!
As we were leaving the Brasenose Arms, John noticed a leaflet about an open day at the grade 1 listed parish church of St Mary the Virgin’s tower the next day. I used to ring the church bells at St Margaret’s church, Edgware, as a young teenager, 44 years ago. We just had to go, and had a super morning. I had a ago at ringing again, they said it would be like riding a bike, you never forget how to!!!! I had a good old ring on their bell number 4. They have 8 bells (St Margaret’s had 6) but they don’t have enough ringers to use all 8 at the moment. I had to decline their offer of joining their band, as we probably won’t be back here for a long while. I used to get paid 50p for ringing for a wedding in the 1970s, now they get £20!!
We went up the tower. First stop off was the clock room, and we were told about its unusual mechanism.
The bell chamber was gorgeous. We were all armed with industrial type ear protection as someone downstairs rang bell 5, so we could see it in motion, AMAZING.
Then onto my favourite place of any tower, the roof. We would always go onto the roof for our break at bell ringing practice. There’s an excellent view of the fairly new marina in Cropredy, and I gather from our guide there was a lot of objection to it being dug. But, several of the ringers, including our guide, have boats moored there.
A view down the Red Lion pub.
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