Monday August 6th, Hawkesbury Junction - Brinklow

The Northern Oxford Canal doesn’t rank particularly high on my list of enjoyable canals. It’s largely mundane, blighted in today’s length by motorways and has many long straight sections which, in the absence of any notable features make it rather monotonous.

Hawkesbury Junction apart, there isn’t much to take note of except to see how many Eddie Stobart lorries can be seen on the various motorway sections and watch the trains go by on the adjacent West Coast Main Line.

The Greyhound at Hawkesbury Junction

Hawkesbury has long been an iconic place in canal folklore, particularly during the days of coal boats waiting for orders at the office conveniently placed there. The presence of The Greyhound pub also added to its fame.

Today, the working boats have gone, Courtauld’s tip and the smoking chimneys of Coventry Power Station (or Longford Light as the boaters knew it) are but a memory.

Old Engine House at Hawkesbury

Having moved slowly past the long line of moored boats we edged through the narrows in the shadow of the old Engine House with its tall chimney looking rather out of place surrounded as it is now by modern housing.

Then, as the Coventry Canal heads off straight ahead for the town centre just over 5 miles away, we turn sharp left under the well-known junction bridge and sharp left again to head through the stop lock and onto the waters of the Oxford Canal.

Hawkesbury Junction

If this junction is thought awkward, it must have been worse when the two canals were first built as the separate companies could not agree on a junction and ran parallel to each other, separated only by a short strip of land, for over a mile to Longford where a similarly tight junction was made. Eventually slightly saner counsels succeeded in changing the junction to the present one at Hawkesbury.

Once through the stop lock and past the long line of moored boats on this side of the junction, we pass the site of the erstwhile power station, now a large sub-station with power lines and pylons approaching from all directions.

Further on, at Tusses Bridge, the old Elephant & Castle is still closed, boarded up and looking very forlorn. Whether it will ever reopen as a pub has to be doubtful in the present economic climate, and I can’t see anyone wanting it as a private house as the M6 roars overhead on a viaduct literally within a stone’s throw.

The Oxford Canal was an early canal, the Coventry – Banbury section opening in 1778. As such it was built as a contour canal, following the contours to avoid the necessary earthworks and heavy construction that would be needed to build embankments, cuttings & tunnels.

Whilst a heavily used route carrying coal from the South Warwickshire fields to London, its trade was affected when the Grand Junction Canal opened from Braunston to London. This offered a far more direct route to London and the coal trade used this in preference to the Braunston – Napton – Oxford – Thames route to London.

By the early C19th, the Oxford was already outdated and new schemes were being promoted to shorten the route from the coalfields to Braunston and thus by-pass the Oxford Canal entirely. At last the Oxford woke up and made significant improvements to the northern section to Braunston by cutting off many of the winding meanders by constructing long embankments & cuttings, resulting in today’s many long straight sections.

Entrance to the Wyken Arm

Once out of the Coventry’s outskirts you immediately come to the first of these straights as it passes through a landscape on one side of playing fields and scrubby horse pastures whilst on the other side the M6 roars alongside and runs parallel to the canal for a mile or so separated by just the towpath hedge. An old colliery loading arm – the Wyken Arm – heads away at an oblique angle under a rickety looking bridge to moorings right in the shadow of the motorway. These are the headquarters of the Coventry Cruising Club.

Soon after it moves away, the canal veers towards the village of Ansty where another motorway, the M69 roars overhead towards its imminent consummation with the M6.

Ansty does not show its best side to the canal; assuming it has one that is. After emerging from the motorway viaduct it heads out on an embankment which is liberally doused with “No Mooring” signs. This is just to stop dirty, lecherous boatmen peering in through the bedroom windows of the houses that line the canal which passes them at first floor level. As if we would……..

A narrow section always full with moored boats on a long drawn out curve takes us out of the village and into another section dating from the 1820 improvements. It first strides out on a long embankment before heading into Nettle Hill Cutting from which an excellent view can be had of the traffic tearing by overhead as the M6 crosses. For Elaine, this is a wonderful place to count Eddies – she got 8 today! Shame we were too far away for her to identify the names!

The main railway line has paralleled us since the embankment and stays with us until we move away, temporarily, after Stretton Stop. Here, an old loop, cut off in the improvements has remained partly in water and is used by a couple of boatyards and for moorings. An insignificant looking swing bridge has to be shoved out of the way as you crawl through the former gauging narrows. We were at least able to keep it open as there was a boat coming towards us who would close it after they went through.

Beyond the stop, another long embankment (known as Brinklow Arches) strides out across a small valley with a graceful towpath bridge rising over the former Brinklow Arm.

Now we were nearing our hoped-for mooring site at Brinklow. Emerging from the wooded cutting all we could see was a long line of boats with hardly any spare room at all. Fortunately, however, there was just enough room for us to get in and tie up.