Duke’s Cut and Beyond

Back in January we declared our intentions to cruise 110miles south to reach the River Thames in Oxford. 4 months later we have made it. That’s near enough 120 miles 120 days (we added a few miles on doing some of the Birmingham loops)

Highlights January to April

Believe it or not, we didn’t actually cruise a mile every day, but despite a few rough moments, storm Dudley, loosing my phone, loosing all the water in a canal, and recently loosing David, its been a good few months of a new adventure. And about a month later than we thought, we are finally here, leaving the Oxford Canal and going through Dukes Cut onto the River Thames.

Stop lock on Dukes Cut

Duke’s cut was built by George Spencer, 4th Duke of Marlborough, to enable him to take advantage of Warwickshire coal, by joining the canal to the river. Today it’s home to a small group of permanent moorers, which could make two way traffic tricky, but we were lucky and didn’t meet anyone.

Think we wil turn right

We hadn’t got the nicest of travelling days to move onto the Thames, but it didn’t take us long to reach Eynsham Lock and a lovely warm welcome from a lock keeper to show us the ropes. We’ve attached our long ropes for locking, got our anchor and mud weights ready to deploy if necessary and rescued the life savers from bottom of the cupboard just in case we fall overboard, so we are river ready. There’s plenty of quirky things to see and as we left the lock, she pointed out the Swinford toll bridge.

Leaving Eynsham Lock


Its one of two toll bridge that remain over the Thames. Motorists have to pay the owner the pricely fee of 5p and endure the privilege of long queues to do so, and regularly campaign to abolish the toll. But with 10000 vehicles using it daily, it doesn’t take a calculator to work out why the owners don’t want to forfeit this tax free golden goose. George III also decreed that no other bridge was allowed to be built within 3 miles of Swinford Bridge.

No Toll, but we do have a Gold Licence


Our next lock Pinkhill, was self service, which gave us a better opportunity to look around and see the wheel wind, so much easier than using a windlass. Raised Red equals paddles open, raised white equal paddles closed.


The weather really wasn’t inspiring for cruising, so we moored up for lunch at the Pinkhill picnic mooring . Another new treat for us knocking pins into a field.

Pinkhill Picnic Mooring

And as soon as we decided to call it a day the sun came out

Evening sun

and we enjoyed a lovely sunset

Still still waters (psalm 23:2)