Editing Oxford Canal (section)

===Commercial use===
====Heyday====
For the next 15 years the Oxford Canal became one of the most important and profitable transport links in Britain, with most commercial traffic between London and the Midlands using the route. Its principal traffic was [[coal]] from Warwickshire. It also carried [[Rock (geology)|stone]], [[Agriculture|agricultural]] products and other goods.

A much more direct route between London and the Midlands, the [[Grand Junction Canal]], was completed in 1805, connecting Braunston to London in much less distance. Much of the London-bound traffic switched to this faster route, as it avoided the passage of the River Thames which still had many [[flash lock]]s. This greatly reduced Oxford Canal traffic south of Napton. However, the short section between Braunston and Napton became the link between the [[Warwick and Napton Canal]] and the Grand Junction Canal, making it part of the busy direct route between Birmingham and London. Despite these developments, the Oxford Canal remained highly profitable during this period; from 1824 to 1826, the company paid [[dividend]]s of up to 55% to its [[shareholder]]s.<ref name="DTRPE"/>

The Grand Junction and Oxford canal companies were bitter rivals. When [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|Parliament]] considered the [[Act of Parliament]] for the building of the Grand Junction, the Oxford Canal successfully petitioned to make the Grand Junction pay "bar tolls" to the Oxford Canal to compensate for the loss of traffic south of Napton.

Traffic from Birmingham had to use {{convert|5|mi|km|0|spell=in}} of the Oxford Canal to get from Braunston to join the Grand Junction at Napton. The Oxford Canal exploited this by charging high tolls for Grand Junction traffic on this short section.

====Straightening====
[[File:Disused Newbold tunnel.jpg|thumb|left|upright|The abandoned tunnel at [[Newbold-on-Avon|Newbold]] on the old route of the canal]]

The Oxford Canal was originally built as a [[contour canal]], meaning that it twisted around hills to minimise vertical deviations from a level contour. This meant however that the canal followed a very winding and circuitous route: Although the distance between Coventry and [[Napton on the Hill|Napton]] was only {{convert|16|mi}} as the crow flies, the distance by the original route of the canal was {{convert|43|mi}}. This mattered little when the Oxford Canal had no competition, however, with increased canal competition, and one eye on the developing railway network, the company decided to straighten the route.<ref name="OCCG"/> 

In 1827 [[Marc Isambard Brunel]] (father of [[Isambard Kingdom Brunel]])<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Coventry Herald. Friday 28 December 1827 | url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000383/18271228/015/0004 |newspaper=Coventry Herald |location=England  |date=28 December 1827 |access-date=4 September 2020 |via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription  }}</ref> re-surveyed the northern section of the canal between Braunston and [[Hawkesbury Village|Hawkesbury]] Junction to straighten it out and reduce navigation time. The following year another survey was carried out by [[Charles Blacker Vignoles|Charles Vignoles]]. The work to straighten the canal was carried out between 1831 and 1834, the majority of the work being in the [[Rugby, Warwickshire|Rugby]] area, and this reduced the distance by {{convert|14+3/4|mi}}. The original tunnel at [[Newbold-on-Avon]] was abandoned when the canal was straightened, and replaced by a new one on a different alignment. The south portal of the old tunnel can still be seen next to the churchyard.<ref name="DTRPE"/> The old line of the canal was either abandoned, or remained in use as arms serving various village wharves. The section south of Napton was never straightened.<ref name="OCCG"/>

====Slow decline====
The straightening of the canal coincided with the beginning of the [[railway]] age, and the opening of the [[London and Birmingham Railway]] in 1838, signalled the end of the dominance of the canals. However, despite the railway competition, the total tonnages of cargo carried on the canal did not decline immediately, and in fact continued to rise for some time, however, the company was forced to slash its tolls in order to remain competitive, and this put an end to the large profits which had previously been made, although ironically the railways provided a new source of income to the canal, who paid them to provide water for their locomotives at Rugby. Traffic on the canal remained such that the three [[Hillmorton Locks|locks at Hillmorton]], the first on the canal after the stop lock at Hawkesbury Junction, became severely congested. The solution to the congestion was to duplicate or twin the existing locks at Hillmorton, creating three pairs of two parallel narrow locks, which allowed twice the traffic to pass the lock at any time. The work to double the locks was completed in August 1840. In 1842, nearly 21,000 boats passed through the locks.<ref name="DTRPE"/><ref name="OCCG"/>

In 1833 a section of the new line of canal in Barby Fields near Dunchurch was used as a test site for a new [[wrought iron]] boat, ''Swallow'', built by Graham and Houston. Drawn by two horses, the boat completed a distance of 1.5 mile in 7 minutes 35 seconds, a speed of almost 12 miles per hour.<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Fast Boats on Canals | url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000358/18330713/009/0003 |newspaper=Berkshire Chronicle |location=England  |date=13 July 1833 |access-date=4 September 2020 |via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription  }}</ref>

Traffic on the Oxford Canal held up reasonably well in the face of railway competition compared to many other navigations, but did see a gradual decline; in 1838, 520,000 tons were carried, which declined to 482,000 tons in 1868. However, income declined much more sharply due to the company slashing its tolls; takings which had gone from £18,478 in 1791/3, and then risen to a maximum of £90,446 in 1827/29, then fell to £26,312 in 1855. Nevertheless, the company was still profitable, and was able to pay dividends.<ref name="DTRPE"/>  

The northern section of the Oxford Canal between Coventry, Braunston and Napton remained an important trunk route, and remained extremely busy with freight traffic until the 1960s. The staple traffic was coal from the [[Warwickshire]] and [[Leicestershire]] [[coalfield]]s to London via the Grand Union Canal. However, the southern section from Napton to Oxford became something of a backwater, and carried mostly local traffic.

[[File:St Barnabas by canal Jericho Oxford 20051224.jpg|thumb|upright|Looking from the Oxford Canal towards [[Jericho, Oxford|Jericho]], with the [[campanile]] of [[St Barnabas Church, Oxford|St Barnabas Church]] in the background]]

====20th century====
In 1934, the Braunston-Napton stretch of the canal was taken over by the recently formed [[Grand Union Canal]] company, and widened as part of that company's London to [[Birmingham]] main-line.<ref name="OCCG"/>

In a bid to raise funds to overcome an arrears of maintenance, in 1936, the Oxford Canal Company decided to sell off their terminal basin at Oxford. In 1937 [[William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield|Baron Nuffield]] (Later Viscount Nuffield) bought the canal basin at Oxford for £133,373<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Lord Nuffield's Purchase | url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000640/19370325/137/0006 |newspaper=Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette |location=England  |date=25 March 1937 |access-date=24 August 2020 |via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription  }}</ref> ({{Inflation|UK|133373|1937|r=-2|fmt=eq|cursign=£}}).{{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}} In 1951 he filled it in and built [[Nuffield College, Oxford|Nuffield College]] on part of the former coal [[wharf]]. Coal traffic was relocated to a canal wharf in Juxon Street, in [[Jericho, Oxford]]. The goods wharf and the remainder of the coal wharf are now under a public car park that Nuffield College lets to Oxford City Council. For this reason, the canal today ends abruptly in central Oxford.<ref name="OCCG"/>

Many Oxford Canal boatmen and women favoured [[Horse-drawn boat|horse traction]] long after those on other canals had changed their narrowboats to diesel power. In the 1930s, only around one in thirty of the boats trading on the canal's southern section was mechanically powered.<ref name="OCCG"/> One narrowboat carrying coal on the Oxford Canal was drawn by a [[mule]] until 1959 and was the last horse-drawn freight narrowboat in [[Great Britain]]. This boat, ''Friendship'', is preserved at the [[National Waterways Museum, Ellesmere Port]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nationalhistoricships.org.uk/ships_register.php?action=ship&id=449|title=Historic Boat Record|access-date=23 February 2010|archive-date=11 March 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120311112541/http://www.nationalhistoricships.org.uk/ships_register.php?action=ship&id=449|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The Oxford Canal remained independent until it was [[nationalization|nationalised]] in 1948 and became part of the [[Docks and Inland Waterways Executive]], later the [[British Waterways Board]]. The Oxford Canal remained profitable until the mid-1950s, paying a dividend right up until nationalisation. As with most of Britain's narrow canal system, the Oxford Canal suffered from a rapid decline in freight traffic after the [[Second World War]]. By the mid-1950s very few narrowboats traded south of Napton and the southern section was at one point being threatened with closure, although the northern section (Napton to Coventry) remained well-used by commercial traffic until the 1960s.