The Oxford
Canal Walk follows the picturesque Oxford Canal as it meanders
slowly through 77 miles of classic scenery, much of which has
barely changed in centuries. Passing through the quiet rural
landscape of the south Midlands. It passes beside 43 locks,
numerous wooden lift bridges, cast iron bridges and through one
tunnel. There are few hills to speak of - the canal summit is only
400 feet above the start at Oxford. At one time it was the
main transport route from the midlands to the south of England and
it is now one of the most beautiful and popular cruising
canals.
William
Carter moved his iron foundry from Summertown in north Oxford to
the banks of the Oxford Canal in 1825, one of the first
developments in what is now the district of Jericho in central
Oxford. The company specialized in cast iron objects, especially
ornamental ironwork. William Grafton became a partner and in 1830
Carter moved to the Eagle Foundry in Leamington. Grafton continued
to manage the foundry in Oxford, which became known as the Eagle
Ironworks. In 1854, the company obtained the freehold for the site
from St John's College, which owned much of north Oxford. When
Grafton died in 1861, William Lucy, his partner, took over the
running of the foundry. When he in turn died in 1873, the name of
the ironworks became "Lucy's".
Over the
years Lucy's has, however, steadily been reducing its industrial
activities in Jericho, freeing up land for housing development.
Lucy's sold its land north of Walton Well Road to Berkely Homes and
this has now become the up-market 'Oxford Waterside' development.
You will see this from the cache location on the opposite bank of
the canal. It would be interesting if you could post a photo of
this development with your log so we can see how things are
progressing.
As my employer has decided that it would be a good idea to
move the whole organisation to Bristol, the Phillimore's (Mad H@ter
and Muddy Legs) will be moving on to pastures new and some fresh
caches. Unfortunately this will mean that it will become difficult
for us to maintain our Oxfordshire caches, so we will therefore be
gradually archiving the majority of them. We shall start our
program of collecting the caches and archiving them in the new
year, but as we have one or two caches out there this will not be a
five minute program! If you would particularly like to find this
cache before it is archived please get in touch and we will try and
hold off archiving it.