page_title: Oxford Canal
section_title: The route
hierarchical_section_title: Oxford Canal / The route
caption_attribution_description: English: The Oxford Canal at Hillmorton on the eastern edge of Rugby in Warwickshire. At the far left of the picture can be seen the lowest of the three pairs of locks at Hillmorton. The house beside the locks, now a private residence, was once the toll office and toll-keeper's home. The small bridge beside the house carries a footpath over a short arm of the canal; the towpath, however, is on the left of the picture. The canal arm leads to a waterway repair yard and a pair of dry-docks. The white building in the right foreground was originally the repair crew's office, but is now a shop and bistro. The locks at Hillmorton were originally single, but were doubled in 1840 to cater for increased traffic. At one time this stretch of the Oxford Canal between Braunston and Coventry was one of the busiest in England. At its height more than 20,000 working boats a year would pass through these locks, mostly carrying coal from the Warwickshire and Leicestershire coalfields, to London, via the Grand Union Canal.
context_page_description: The Oxford Canal is a 78-mile narrow canal in central England linking Oxford with Bedworth via Banbury and Rugby. Completed in 1790, it connects to the River Thames at Oxford and is integrated with the Grand Union Canal—combined for 5 miles close to the villages of Braunston and Napton-on-the-Hill, a canal which soon after construction superseded much of its traffic.
  The canal was for approximately 15 years the main canal artery of trade between the Midlands and London; it retained importance in its local county economies and that of Berkshire. Today the canal is frequently used in weekend and holiday narrowboat pleasure boating.
  The Oxford Canal traverses Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and east Warwickshire through broad, shallow valleys and lightly rolling hills; resembling the bulk of the Grand Union Canal and its branches, much of the landscape is similar to the Llangollen and Lancaster canals. It has frequent wharves and public houses, particularly if including the parts of the Grand Union Canal immediately adjoining. North of about a third of its distance, namely from Napton, the canal travelling northeast then northwest forms part of the Warwickshire ring.
context_section_description: The canal begins in Warwickshire near Hawkesbury Village at Hawkesbury Junction, also known as Sutton Stop, where it connects with the Coventry Canal, a little over four miles (6 km) from the centre of Coventry and five miles (8 km) from Nuneaton. Within a mile were the late 18th-century and 19th-century coal field/pit and colliery of the small town of Bedworth. From Hawkesbury, it runs southeast through the Warwickshire countryside for 15 miles (24 km) to Rugby.
  The route between Coventry and Rugby is on a level with no locks, apart from the stop lock at the junction. Parts of this section were straightened through raising and waterproofing in the 1820s; remains of a more circuitous route (which kept to the chosen contour) can still be seen in places.
  The canal winds through the northern part of Rugby. It passes through a tunnel, the 270-yard (250 m) Newbold Tunnel. In the churchyard in Newbold-on-Avon remains can be seen of an earlier tunnel for the canal built in the 1770s. It scales a flight of three locks at Hillmorton about three miles (5 km) east-southeast of the town.
  East of Rugby, the canal passes southwest then south.  It travels under the M45 motorway and otherwise through broad low fields interspersed by views of wooded knolls and modest hills of Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to reach Braunston.
  West of Braunston village centre by a pub the canal converges with the Grand Union Canal where both change direction to travel west-southwest. The latter canal has a major wharf, Braunston Marina, 770 yards (700 m) east and a campsite. The combined canal splits north of Napton-on-the-Hill:
  the Oxford Canal runs southwest and then turns south towards Oxford via Banbury
  the Grand Union Canal runs north passing opposing marinas within a mile then northwest to Birmingham via Warwick.
  After winding round Napton Hill, the canal ascends the Napton flight of nine locks to a local summit reach, well below the hilltop. After passing an old wharf and a pub at Fenny Compton, the canal enters a long cutting which until a date in the 19th century was a tunnel. This section is normally referred to as 'tunnel straight' or the Fenny Compton Tunnel.
  The route between the farms of Priors Hardwick and Fenny Compton was never straightened and is the most circuitous in the region: taking 5 ¹⁄₂ miles (9 km) to travel 2 ¹⁄₄ miles (3.5 km) (geodesically, as the crow flies).  This coincides with the canal's highest "summit" reach in navigational terms. This reach is the "eleven-mile pound" mentioned in Tom Rolt's Narrow Boat.
  The canal then descends the Claydon flight of locks and into the vale of the nascent Cherwell at Cropredy. The canal descends the valley to Oxford.
  Banbury has many visitor moorings alongside the historic and modern shopping areas in the middle of town. Banbury Town Council and Cherwell District Council treat the canal as an attraction to be encouraged; examples of its work include an old boatyard which has been incorporated into the town centre: Tooley's Historic Boatyard. About four miles (6 km) south is a lightly-settled locality, Twyford Wharf, where narrow boats up to 60 feet (18 m) can be turned. Two villages nearby, Kings Sutton and Adderbury (Twyford), are within 30 minutes' walking distance along the road. Both offer several pubs.
  Within Oxford's conurbation, the end of the canal has two links to the Thames:
  three miles (5 km) north of the city where Dukes Cut leads to King's Lock;
  a few hundred yards (metres) from the heart of the city centre by Oxford railway station. below Isis Lock (known to boatmen as 'Louse Lock') through Sheepwash Channel. This leads to an elongated navigable circuit at the Thames called "Four Rivers" above Osney Lock.
  After 330 yards (300 m) below Isis Lock the Oxford Canal ends abruptly at Hythe Bridge Street near to the current Hythe Bridge over the Castle Mill Stream, a backwater of the River Thames that runs parallel to the Oxford Canal for its southernmost part. The canal used to continue through a bridge under Hythe Bridge Street to a turning basin and goods wharf south of Hyth
caption: The canal and locks at Hillmorton
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