Maps
The Cherwell is shown here on six web pages:
Cherwell Mouth (from the Isis to below Magdalen Bridge)
Magdalen Bridge
Mesopotamia (from above Magdalen Bridge to the boat rollers)
Upper Cherwell (above the boat rollers to below Bardwell Road Punting station)
Bardwell Road to the Victoria Arms
Islip (Cherwell above the Victoria Arms)
Other pages of interest to punters are:
Bullstake Stream (Other side of the Isis (aka Thames) - for punters to explore)
To Old Navigation (Punt up above Osney Lock and then round to Oxford Castle)
There are also two round trips including going up the Oxford Canal and coming back down via Kings Lock and Godstow
1909: The Thames Story, J E Vincent -
... pass on beyond Marston Ferry (where is a primitive inn with arbours and tea), and between real meadows, thrice welcome in these latter days, for Water Eaton.
The banks become rougher and the river shallower. The Cherwell winds around; there is a section with rather higher current; Map; it passes more houses on the right bank with private punts and other boats; and finally approaches the bypass from which you will be glad either to turn round or persevere for yet greater beauty.
Map: A40, Northern Bypass Bridge
A solid stone Bridge of double width, built 1934.
Map: Tributary Stream, left bank
Keep left going upstream.
Map: Sparsey Footbridge
1906: Sparsey Bridge, Henry Taunt -
Sparsey Bridge, Henry Taunt, 1906
© Oxfordshire County Council Photographic Archive; HT9882
Map: Water Eaton Manor House
1885: Manor House, Water Eaton, Henry Taunt -
Manor House, Water Eaton, Henry Taunt, 1885
© Oxfordshire County Council Photographic Archive; HT4960
Water Eaton.
1909: The Thames Story, J E Vincent -
Thus far we must penetrate, in spite of difficulties of navigation
over the ford close to the house, [not nowadays]
for whoso has not seen Water Eaton from the Cherwell has not seen
one of the neatest and most complete Jacobean manor houses in England.
Thirty years ago [i.e. 1879] one might inspect the whole, courtyard, chapel and the rest,
for it was occupied as a farm, and the farm folk were kindly.
Since then it has been the home of a famous architect, now dead,
and it is possibly somebody else's home now, into which one would not like to intrude.
But from the Cherwell it is perfect,
and worth three and four times the little trouble needed to reach it.
Water Eaton is quite far enough up the stream to go;
Islip hardly repays the trouble of winning to it,
though the navigation is through scenes of real beauty
[ Those who turn at this point will quote that sentence with satisfaction.
Those who continue will have that certain knowledge of superiority ... ]
Map: Above Water Eaton
[ The Virtual Earth Map has added the word "Cherwell" to mark a ditch
the other side of a field from the River. It did indeed once flow there.
The evidence is in the Old OS Map - click the link from the Virtual Earth Map to see it. ]
The Cherwell gets narrower and faster and shallower and
one begins to see why the Oxford Canal did not come this way -
even though it looks promising on the map.
Reeds and swans may be your problems.
Swans always seem more threatening than they really
are. In forty two years punting I have
been threatened and chased several times but only once did a large swan make
his mark on the punt by taking a peck at it.
And you are armed with an impressive pole … don’t hit the swan – use it
to do what he is doing – make a display – make a splash.
Swans are cowardly and not particularly
bright. But they can be macho.
Indeed they are not unlike the average ...
( fill in the word that comes to mind )
Eventually, just when you think it will never arrive, you may see this view:
Map. [In the Virtual Earth View the church is just south of the word "Islip" ]
1885: Islip Church from the Cherwell, 500 yards below Islip weir, Henry Taunt -
Islip Church from the Cherwell, Taunt, 1885
© Oxfordshire County Council Photographic Archive; HT4965
Islip Weir is the outflow of the River Ray into the Cherwell.
At summer levels a canoeist would have no
difficulty surmounting it.
The foot of the weir is very shallow with boulders.
I think there is a pub just above the weir.
Map: Islip, Ray Weir
Islip Weir, the outflow of the River Ray into the Cherwell.
Place-Names and Topography in the Upper Thames Country, W. J. Arkell -
A name of special interest is Islip, the village standing both at the gap through which the River Ray leaves the enclosed basin of Otmoor and at the confluence of the Ray and Cherwell. It was Githslepe in about 1050, Gihtslepe in 1065, Ichteslep in 1242. Geht, Giht, Ychte, Ight is the old British name for the River Ray. O.E. slaep means literally ‘slippery place,’ and is connected with O.E. slipan to slip. Ekwall (1936) states that it is related to Middle Low German slepen and Old High German sleifen, ‘to drag,’ and suggests ‘a meaning such as “place where things are dragged, portage.”’ A more suggestive cognate, however, is Norwegian sleip, ‘rollers for boats’ (Alexander, 1912, p. 137), which introduces the idea of a ‘slipway’ for launching or drawing up boats, and hence perhaps ‘ferry.’ Before the building of the bridge, Islip would have been well named ‘Ight ferry.’ There is no other place where the Ray can be crossed, for on one side lies the Cherwell and on the other Otmoor.
1005: King Edward the Confessor [later Saint Edward] was born and baptized in Islip -
On the site of a small inn, known by the sign of the Red Lion, near the middle of the town,
anciently stood the palace of King Ethelred;
...
In the same yard also stood an ancient building,
... said to have been the identical chapel appertaining to the Saxon palace.
In this edifice stood a stone font, which tradition had unhesitatingly pronounced
to be that in which the Confessor [King Ethelred's son, King Edward the Confessor, 1005 - 1066]
was baptized;
...
[The font bore] the following imperfect inscription in capitals:
... THIS SACRED FONT SAINT EDWARD FIRST RECEAVED
... FROM WOMB TO GRACE, FROM GRACE TO GLORY WENT
... HIS VIRTUOUS LIFE TO THIS FAYRE ISLE BEQUETHED
... PRASE AND TO US LENT
...
LET THIS REMAINE, THE TROPHIES OF HIS FAME,
A KING BAPTIZED FROM HENCE A SAINT BECAME
1819: Unfortunately - for the multiplication of evidence seems to me in this case to detract from its worth - there is also this from THE NEW BRITISH TRAVELLER, by James Dugdale, LL.D.
The Kiddington manor-house was chiefly built, or repaired, by Sir Henry Browne, in 1673, on the foundations
of an old seat, to which appertained a walled park.
…
In the garden is the font in which it is said King Edward the Confessor was
baptized at Islip. The block of stone, in which the
basin of immersion is excavated, is of an octangular
shape; and the outside is adorned by tracery work.
The interior diameter of the basin is thirty inches,
and the depth twenty. The whole, with the pedestal, which is of a piece with the rest, is five feet high,
and bears the following imperfect inscription:
This sacred Font Saint Edward first receavd.
From Womb to Grace, from Grace to Glory went
His virtuous Life. To this fayre Isle beqveth'd.
Praise .... and to vs but lent.
Let this remaine, the Trophies of his Fame,
A King baptiz'd from hence a Saint became.
This Fonte came from the King's Chapell in Islip.
And here I reached my limit. Straight on up the Cherwell (to the west) rapidly became too shallow to follow. It was June with low summer levels. At other times it might be more possible - though against a higher stream would you have got this far?
The Cherwell at Islip, almost as far as I could get.
1822: The Etonian; Allen le Blanc -
... Mr. Thompson is not content with that mere inert sort of antiquarianism
which I see Mr. Bellamy is famous for — I mean the stocking a cabinet with curiosities in this line.
His (Mr. Thompson's) research is an active one.
There is not an old Church, ruined Abbey, or Field of Battle, in the neighbourhood,
within twenty miles, which he has not visited,
and of whose traditions he has not made himself perfectly master.
He has the very spirit of Columbus in exploring the various streams
with which this well-watered county abounds.
He has pursued the course of the Cherwell till it has become no wider than a brook;
and not satisfied with a day's expedition up the Isis,
during which he was several times obliged to draw his skiff over certain disagreeable impediments
denominated wiers,
he has lately been talking of penetrating as far as Cheltenham,
and entertained sanguine hopes of crossing the range of hills in which the river takes its rise,
and then dropping down, by some stream, into the Bristol Channel.
John Betjeman: - would you believe this as a book title? -
Oxford University Chest comprising a Description of the
present state of the Town and University of Oxford with an
itinerary arranged alphabetically.
In his section - An Approach to Oxford -
[ Notice that Betjeman assumes that anyone would be approaching Oxford from London! ]
Map.
The approaches to Oxford are the worst thing about it.
None of them prepare you for a vision of a home of learning
nestling grey among the elm surrounded meadows.
I have made a mistake.
There is one route, too circuitous and too laborious to be taken
by any but the most romantic minded.
You turn off the main road from High Wycombe just beyond Wheatley
and make for Chipping Norton. After a
few miles you branch left by shut-in lanes through grey Elsfield downhill to
Marston. Here you take the footpath to Marston Ferry.
[The Victoria Arms]
At the ferry you board a punt or rob roy [canoe] and paddle down the
stream of the Cherwell to Magdalen Bridge.
The Cherwell is as romantic as it ever was – willows, meadows in
which fritillaries have been found, a few boathouses and tea gardens with
parents pouring out for self-conscious undergraduates.
Under willows you will see punts moored close into the
bank. The intellectual head of an
undergraduette appears above the cushions, the pipe smoke of her admirer winds
up among the leaves. A gramophone plays
a dance tune.
Gradually the subtle variations of a Bach fugue break in upon the dance.
A punt rounds the corner, full of clever
looking men in grey flannel trousers and shirt sleeves – sleeves of what shirts
setting off what Czechoslovakian peasant-art ties! – this probably contains one
of the younger dons with some promising pupils.
Soon they will all be off on a reading party to the Pyrenees
and when they return very few of them will be on speaking terms.
But let us not look into the future while we can see so much of the past.
As the shouts of the boys and the encouragement of the swimming
instructors die away from the bathing place of the Dragon School behind us, the
river takes a turn at a discreet female bathing place, and part of Oxford
University is before us. We are in the
University Parks, where, of an afternoon, games are played on those dreary
levels of sparse grass. In the distance Keble College
pricks the skyline with its turrets and iron decorations.
The river is spanned by an elegant footbridge, which humps
itself like a Magpie Moth caterpillar (Abraxas grossulariata).
The effect is quite Japanese. This is the prettiest bridge for miles, a
delicate piece of engineering unspoiled by ‘architectural’ additions.
Hoarse shouts, splashes, and screams sound above the thunder of
a weir. We are at Parson’s Pleasure, the
open-air bathing place. There may be
many parsons there, for all we can tell – clergymen are a great feature of
North Oxford – but everyone is naked.
Bodies lie stretched on the grass, looking up
between the poplars, pipes jammed into mouths, sunlight dappling bald or
long-haired heads.
We pull the boat over the rollers and the Cherwell winds on
through the meadows of Mesopotamia to Magdalen Bridge.
A gravel walk follows the river. Earnest students walk briskly along it,
airing their brains before an evening’s study.
Snatches of conversation float down to us – ‘Herodotus … first class
mind … an alpha man … Aristotelian … Hegelian … Economic …’.
The conversations die away.
The river bends. The
banks are steep and scooped away by the narrow stream.
The trees of Addison’s Walk hang over us.
We are shut in by mud and grass.
Somewhere about here it is, that you can hear the bells of Oxford
better than from anywhere else. The
sound sifted from the motor traffic carries across the meadows.
I cannot particularize the bend in the stream
without going in a boat to show you. It
is some yards from Magdalen Bridge for the roar of
the main road traffic is scarcely audible.
Then you have to be spared the blaring of portable gramophones.
But there is such a bend and no time is better to hear
the bells than shortly before six on a still summer evening.
One – two, One – two, One – two. New College Tower is calling to
choral evensong. Elsewhere college
chapels and little high church places of worship where a lonely vicar will run
through evensong to an old lady from North Oxford, keep up an insistent tinkle.
Then Magdalen Tower breaks into a chime quite near, one two three four,
four three two one, one two three four, four three two one.
This sets the bells going all over the town.
Finally the heavy boom from Tom Tower, Christ Church
strikes the hours and puts an end to the dispute.
Now the bells start for evening chapel at
Magdalen and somewhere a church tower, probably Carfax, strikes a belated six
to defy the thunderings of Tom.
People have noticed these bells across the Oxford rivers for years.
At the end of the eighteenth century,
Cowper’s friend, the Reverend James Hurdis, Professor of Poetry, thus remarked
them:
So have I stood at eve on Isis’ banks,
To hear the merry Christ-church bells ring round.
So have I sat too in thy honoured shades
Distinguish’d Magdalen, on Cherwell’s brink,
To hear thy silver Wolsey tones so sweet.
And so too have I paus’d and held my oar
And suffer’d the slow stream to bear me home,
No speed required while Wykeham’s peal was up.
With a bump we knock into the cluster of boats round Magdalen
Bridge; thread our way through cushioned
empty punts shaded by Magdalen Tower.
So by willows, lovers, intellectuals, boys, bathers, bells, we
have come right into the High Street of the University City;
what more appropriate approach?
Elsewhere John Betjeman tacked a few of his own lines
onto that poem he quoted above (somewhere, in transmission perhaps, the words
have changed):
On the New Buildings, Magdalen College -
Let me go on in Hurdis's blank verse
So very blank and to the point and terse;
He was a fellow once and in his time
Deeply loved Magdalen and avoided rhyme
"It is enough for me to hear the sound
Of the remote exhilerating peal
Now dying away, now faintly hear,
And now with loud and musical relapse
Its mellow changes huddling on the ear.
So have I stood at eve on Isis’ banks,
To hear the merry Christchurch bells rejoice,
So have I sat too in thy honoured shades
Distinguished Magdalen on Cherwell's bank
To hear thy silver Wolsey tones so sweet.
And soon too have I paused and held my oar
And suffered the sweet stream to bear me home,
While Wykeham's peal along the meadow ran."
1890: As to the bells of Oxford, Betjeman is not alone: The Royal River -
Nowhere is midnight so late as in Oxford.
It is announced from so many towers at so many moments by bells of the
most various tone and cadence; but by
all, even to the most maundering and belated, with the same precise conviction,
as if one could hear all the lecturers saying the same thing in their own words -
It is midnight here, now.
And faint and loud another and another awakes and insists -
It is midnight here, now.
Through the middle clamour the chime of St
Mary’s drops down three pathetic steps and climbs up through the same
intervals. The University is older by
another hour.
On your way back, after passing Magdalen Bridge, go round the other side of the sports ground by the Botanic gardens. On the left bank is St Hilda’s College. Rejoining your previous route just above the (ex) wire ferry.
When you come to the old mouth of the Cherwell go straight on to see the main exit of the Cherwell onto the Thames (or Isis as they insist round here).
I was chatting to my passengers one day near the mouth of the Cherwell when one of them looked around and remarked -
Isn’t nature wonderful! How beautiful it is left to its own devices, away from the hand of man!
With which sentiment I would heartily have agreed, had it
not been that I was thinking at that very moment, that every inch of river of
the last few miles travelled that day, was man made, the result of many
centuries of water commerce and milling, weirs and locks,
and in particular that the last section of the
Cherwell is the New Cut – actually a canal, cut to bypass the tortuous old
mouths of the Cherwell and thus relieve flooding!
1884: Construction of the new Cherwell Cut, Henry Taunt -
Construction of Cherwell Cut, Henry Taunt, 1884
© Oxfordshire County Council Photographic Archive; HT02723
As you laze along this beautiful tree lined section, give
a thought to the labourers who dug it out by hand!
The photo shows no trees at all here in 1884.
I have to admit that nature has done a pretty
good job on the banks of the said canal.
The whole river from Cricklade to Teddington (and of
course beyond in both directions) is very much an artificial creation.
Nature reasserts itself and adapts - but
essentially the river is a work of art.
It was shaped by monks and millers and bargemen, by the requirements of
their monasteries and water wheels and weirs and towpaths.
And now all that has gone and what remains is the water
supply for London, and the boating leisure industry,
together of course with the river activities -
fishing and rowing and sailing and punting and walking.
Fortunately all these together have been able
to attract enough money to keep the Thames in
excellent condition from the boaters' point of view!
Our thanks to those who help to maintain it so well.
Long may it be so - Where Thames [ and Isis and Cherwell ] Smooth Waters Glide. John Eade
1916: A Boating Excursion on the River Cherwell.
Lower Cherwell
Upper Cherwell
Iffley Lock
Folly Bridge
Punting the Bullstake Stream
The Head of the River (below Folly Bridge)
Introduction
Estuary
PLA
QEII Br
Barrier
Tower Br
Custom Ho
London Br
; Frost Fairs
Cannon St Rb
The Great Stink
Southwark Br
Millenium Br
Blackfriars Rb
Blackfriars Br
Waterloo Br
Charing Cross Rb
Westminster Br
Lambeth Br
Vauxhall Br
Victoria Rb
Chelsea Br
Albert Br
Battersea Br
Battersea Rb
Wandsworth Br
Fulham Rb
Putney Br
Hammersmith Br
Barnes Rb
Chiswick Br
Kew Rb
Kew Br
RICHMOND
Twickenham Br
Richmond Rb
Richmond Br
TEDDINGTON
Kingston Rb
Kingston Br
Ditton Slip
Hampton Br
MOLESEY
SUNBURY
Walton Br
Desborough Cut
SHEPPERTON
Chertsey Br
CHERTSEY
M3 Br
Laleham Slip
PENTON HOOK
Staines Rb
Staines Br
Runnymede Br
BELL WEIR
Magna Carta Is
OLD WINDSOR
Albert Br
Datchet
Victoria Br
Black Potts Rb
ROMNEY
Eton
Windsor Br
Windsor Rb
Windsor Slip
Elizabeth Br
BOVENEY
Dorney Lake
York Cut
Summerleaze Fb
MonkeyIsland
New Thames Br
BRAY
Bray Slip
Maidenhead Rb
Maidenhead Br
Below Boulters
BOULTERS
Cliveden
Hedsor
COOKHAM
Cookham Slip
Cookham Br
BourneEnd RFb
Quarry Woods
A404 Br
MARLOW
Marlow Br
Bisham
TEMPLE
HURLEY
Medmenham
Culham Ct
Aston Slip
HAMBLEDEN
Temple Is
Fawley Ct
Remenham
Regatta
Phyllis Ct
Henley Slip
Leander
Red Lion
Henley Br
Angel on Br
Landing
Hobbs Boatyard
Hobbs Slipway
MARSH
Hennerton
Bolney
Wargrave
Shiplake Rb
R.Loddon
SHIPLAKE
Sonning Br
SONNING
Dreadnought
K&A Canal
CAVERSHAM
Reading Br
Caversham Br
Reading Slip
Purley
MAPLEDURHAM
Hardwick Ho
Whitchurch Br
WHITCHURCH
Hartswood Reach
Gatehampton Rb
Goring Gap
Goring Br
GORING
Swan
CLEEVE
Moulsford
Moulsford Rb
Papist Way Slip
Winterbrook Br
Wallingford Br
BENSON
Shillingford Br
R.Thame
DAYS
Burcot
Clifton Hampden
Clifton Church
Clifton H Br
Barley Mow
Long Wittenham
CLIFTON
Appleford Rb
Sutton Courtenay
Sutton Br
CULHAM
Culham Cut Fb
Abingdon Slip
Abingdon
Abingdon Br
ABINGDON
Nuneham Rb
Nuneham
Nuneham Park
Radley Boats
SANDFORD
Rose Island
Kennington Rb
Isis Br
Iffley Mill
IFFLEY
Oxford Rowing
Isis
Donnington Br
Riverside Slip
Boathouses
Punting
Lower Cherwell
Upper Cherwell
Islip
Head of River
Salters Steamers
Folly Br
Bacons Folly
Oxford Fb
Osney Fb
Weir stream
Osney Rb
Bullstake Stream
Osney Marina
OSNEY
Osney Br
Four Rivers
OLD RIVER
CANAL
Medley Weir Site
Medley Fb
Bossoms
Perch
Trout
GODSTOW
Godstow Nunnery
Godstow Br
Thames Br
KINGS
River Evenlode
EYNSHAM
Swinford Br
Oxford Cruisers
PINKHILL
Farmoor
Stanton Harcourt
Bablock Slip
Arks Weir Site
NORTHMOOR
Harts Fb
Rose Revived
Newbridge
Maybush
River Windrush
below Shifford
SHIFFORD
Shifford Fb
Tenfoot Fb
Trout Inn
Tadpole Br
RUSHEY
Old Mans Fb
RADCOT
Radcot Cradle Fb
Swan Inn
Radcot New Br
Radcot Old Br
GRAFTON
Eaton Hastings
Kelmscott
Eaton Fb
BUSCOT
Bloomers Hole Fb
Trout Inn
St Johns Br
ST JOHNS
Halfpenny Br
Marina Slip
LIMIT
Inglesham
Hannington Br
Kempsford
Castle Eaton Br
Marston Meysey
A419 Br
Cricklade
SOURCE?
THAMES HEAD
SEVEN SPRINGS