Living waterways (From The Oxford Times)

Living waterways

2:49pm Friday 17th March 2006 in Museums By David Horne

Friends of the Oxford Canal and Basin was set up recently to promote the reinstatement of the Worcester Street car park as a canal basin.

Members believe that there is an opportunity to transform this part of Oxford into a vibrant centre of city life, using the long-neglected canal basin area which was so important to the history of Oxford in the 18th and 19th centuries.

This proposal seems to have ignited the imagination of many local people, and turned our attention once more to the historical significance and future potential of the magnificent Oxford Canal.

Having spent many an enjoyable summer holiday on narrowboats, I can think of no better lunchtime mooring than in the heart of Oxford city centre, surrounded by bustling pubs, cafes and shops. Tourism and leisure is now the mainstay of picturesque waterways like the Oxford Canal, but we should never forget that these cuts' were once thriving highways of commerce that allowed the city to prosper throughout the Industrial Age.

Living Waterways at the Museum of Oxford is an exploration of Britain's waterways, including the social history of those who lived and worked on the Oxford Canal.

The Oxford' is among the earliest cuts in the Canal Age. Designed by James Brindley, it was opened in 1790 with the purpose of bringing coal from the Coventry coalfields to Oxford and the south.

Before the building of the canal, Oxford had to get coal from Newcastle-upon-Tyne via the North Sea and the River Thames! The canal formed part of Brindley's grand plan for a waterway cross' linking the rivers Thames, Mersey, Trent and Severn. The Oxford' provided a direct link with London via the Thames, and for several years was hugely profitable.

However, the arrival of the Grand Junction Canal, linking Braunston to London, and later becoming the backbone of the Grand Union Canal, finally broke its stranglehold and effectively bypassed the southern half of the Oxford Canal.

This, combined with the rise of the railways, resulted in a dramatic fall in the number of working boats. Local boatmen had no choice but to move their entire families onto the boat. Generations were born, raised, lived and died afloat. Wives and children became the new crew' and worked gruelling shifts to carry their cargo just 30 miles a day.

The Living Waterways exhibition includes a specially built reconstruction of a narrowboat cabin, to demonstrate the cramped conditions in which entire families lived.

Other fascinating artefacts include an original boatman's embroidered belt, canal costumes from the Victorian era, and pottery decorated in the traditional Roses & Castles' style.

The Living Waterways exhibition runs from Saturday, March 11 until Sunday, May 21, 2006. The Museum of Oxford is located in Oxford's historic Town Hall, St Aldates, Oxford. For more information about events and activities associated with this exhibition, call 01865 252761 or e-mail museum@oxford.gov.uk