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
Map: Bardwell Road Punting Station
Cherwell Boathouse.
Right bank punt hire station at Bardwell Road which has been there since
1901. It sells ice creams and teas and
there is a restaurant. Anyone who is
uncertain about punting is recommended to start here as the river is much
quieter and straightforward than at Folly Bridge or Magdalen Bridge.
Oxford Punt hiring, prices etc
Article © Newsquest (Oxfordshire) Ltd. 2006 (permission requested) -
Halcyon days
Jenny Lunnon reflects on 100 years of punting from Oxford’s Cherwell Boathouse
In high summer Oxford’s Cherwell Boathouse teems with life.
People come and go bearing poles and cushions or picnic on the lawn as they await their turn.
Parents insert children’s unwieldy limbs into life-jackets, students celebrate Finals,
and newcomers try to master this strange craft.
But by November the riverbank is quiet again.
The boathouse staff have closed the punt hire service and retreated inside to repair the boats,
just as their predecessors have done every autumn for the past 100 years.
The boathouse, located in Bardwell Road, was built in 1904 by Oxford University Waterman
Thomas Tims and run for over half a century by his grandsons Tom Tims Walker and Harry Walker.
In 1963 Tom Tims Walker recalled:
“When I started here we had six punts, two skiffs and three canoes;
now we have over 120 punts and more than 30 canoes.”
Tony Verdin bought the business in 1968, and today it is run by his son Johnny.
Roger Forster, boathouse manager for the past 13 years, first became fascinated by
punting when he was eight:
“As a kid I just fell in love with the place.”
He helped to bail out the boats in exchange for 50ps and ice-cream,
and some early lessons in boat-building.
Punting, he explained, has a long, if obscure, history:
“There have been punts since man first stood on a log and pushed it with a stick …
but how did that become the Oxford punt?”
For centuries, punts were used for moving heavy cargoes, or crossing rivers:
Marston Ferry was one such punt. Because they were heavy, punts were propelled
by the punter walking along the length of the boat, not ‘pricking’ the pole into the
riverbed from a stationary position, the method used with today’s lighter craft.
Punts became pleasure boats in the late 19th century. Victorian and Edwardian women
were encouraged to punt as it was considered appropriately ‘ladylike’ exercise.
In 1907, B H B Symons-Jeune wrote:
“One of the most noticeable features in the development of punting during the last few years
is the extraordinary number of lady punters to be seen now everywhere on the river,
and nothing looks nicer than to see a lady punting really well —
the average lady is distinctly better than the average man.”
A sign downstream ordered women to get off and walk along the bank for a stretch,
so that they would not be shocked by the sight of naked men bathing at Parson’s Pleasure.
The bathing place was closed in the 1990s because European Union regulations required
there to be a full-time lifeguard on duty: this was deemed to be too expensive,
and the site was converted into a picnic area.
Today, people hire punts for just a few hours, but in the mid-20th century there was a
vogue for camping punts, taken on longer journeys upstream through the water-meadows to
Islip and beyond. The boathouse still has hundreds of hoops and an old canvas tent.
While some river fashions come and go, many aspects of boathouse life remain unchanged.
There is an unbroken tradition of building punts on site.
The basic design, and names for parts of the boat, are well-established.
The seating area is the ‘saloon’; the flat, planked wooden part; the ‘box’;
and the tip of each end the ‘huff’. The protective metal end of the pole is the ‘shoe’.
The punts are still built mainly from hardwoods. The bottoms are now made from sheets of plywood. Previously, they were made from planks fitted closely together, as in barrel construction. When the boats were stored out of the water, gaps would open up, so the start of every season saw an activity called ‘taking up’. Each punt was submerged until the planks swelled up and closed the gaps.
Today there are 75 punts, three rowing boats, and four canoes at the boathouse.
Around 20 Oxford colleges have contracts which allow their students to take out punts here.
Other clients include tourists, language students, families, and couples:
punting trips are favoured occasions for marriage proposals.
Over the past 36 years, Tony Verdin has developed the adjoining Cherwell Boathouse Restaurant
from a student eating den into Oxford’s best restaurant, according to the 2004 Good Food Guide.
It is open all year round, has outside seating on the terrace,
and also caters for wedding receptions and corporate events.
Is punting difficult? To look at people zigzagging from bank to bank,
or the unfortunate punter left clinging to a pole as their boat heads downstream,
one might think so. However, Mr Forster said:
“If you’ve asked, or tried to look and learn, it doesn’t take long to pick up.”
Which end one should punt from is a bone of contention between Oxford and ‘the other place’.
In Cambridge people punt from the flat end — the box — (and call it the ‘deck’).
Because a punter standing here has a higher centre of balance,
they are more likely to fall in, so the Oxford position is easier for beginners.
Mr Forster can tell if a punter has been to Eton because the school teaches such a
distinctive punting style.
As the leaves begin to turn, and the kingfishers reappear to swoop in long curves,
like boat planes, in front of the boathouse, the punts are taken out of the water
to be sanded down, varnished, and repaired. A well-maintained punt can last 40 years.
“One of the beauties of this job is the variety” said Mr Forster:
“I look forward to closing the doors and being in the workshop: it’s homely.
But by mid-March we are just about stir crazy, and ready to open up again.”
© Newsquest (Oxfordshire) Ltd. 2006
1915: Here it was that T S Eliot is said to have met his wife -
As spring arrived, the presence of the Americans attracted eager young women, short of partners in the first year of the Great War. One such visitor to Oxford was Vivienne Haigh-Wood, a vivacious artist's daughter from Hampstead who, one sunny afternoon, hired a punt on the River Cherwell. She was a slight girl with huge grey eyes, a governess with pretensions to culture. As the boat glided under the willows, Vivienne bent over her phonograph and placed the needle upon the record. The sound of ragtime drifted over the water.
The familiar tune attracted the attention of Eliot, the tall, nervous young
American from Merton who had also taken a punt on the river. It reminded him of
home in St. Louis, Missouri, where as a child he used to listen to the music
from the honky-tonks, and promised an antidote to the gloom of wartime Oxford
where he had been "plugging away at Husserl" and finding it terribly
hard.
To his old Harvard friend, Conrad Aiken, Eliot had written on New Year's
Eve 1914,
"I hate university towns and university people, who are the same
everywhere, with pregnant wives, sprawling children, many books and hideous
pictures on the walls . . .
Oxford is very pretty, but I don't like to be dead."
Now, catching sight of Vivienne, one of the "river
girls," as the press of that time described such light-hearted young
women, Tom Eliot saw a way out of his gloom. For in the punt with her was
another American he thought he recognised: Lucy Thayer, a cousin of Scofield
Thayer, Tom's fellow alumnus from Milton Academy in Massachusetts, a young man
who came from the same distinguished New England milieu as Eliot, and who was
also studying at Oxford, at Magdalen College, conveniently close to Merton. And
Scofield was about to give a luncheon party to which Eliot was invited.
Watching Vivienne and Lucy, laughing in their white dresses, his spirits began
to lift. It only needed a word in Scofield's ear . . .
This tale was related by Eliot's friend Sacheverell Sitwell, and
may well be apocryphal, although Vivienne was introduced to Tom Eliot at a
lunch party in Scofield's rooms at Magdalen. And she did love the river. One of
her only surviving sketches is of a punt moored under the willows. For
Vivienne, it seems, one glance was enough. She fell in love.
It was a violent love - fierce, uncompromising and loyal.
[In 1909 the Cherwell was as crowded as now it is peaceful, usually] -
1909: The Story of the Thames, J E Vincent -
A little higher, for the average man or woman, the inclination to take pleasure in the sight of others enjoying themselves begins to be lost in a feeling that the Cherwell and its banks have become a great deal too populous. A new hotel obtrudes itself on the water's side; the name of the boats and punts is Legion, and as the word is written down, it comes to mind that the reference is more apposite than usual, for the navigation of the many crafts is often devilish. North Oxford and Summertown have completely robbed all this part of the Cherwell of its peace, and its peace was its chiefest charm. Nevertheless we push on, partly in order to escape from the crowd and the noise ..
[ It is good to identify those aspects of the river which have improved - and clearly here is one. Except at those party moments, the Cherwell is now full of peace and tranquillity, and at those party moments I would say "If you can't beat them, join them!" ]
Map: Footbridge
Footbridge and Punt Hire Station (from upstream)
On the right bank is Wolfson College with a shallow punt harbour, Map, and then we are out into the fields winding away -
1895: Oxford magazine, S -
ON THE CHER
THE morning light is like a song
Between the trees whose shadows throng
The water where we drift along.
Sweet song that scorns the toil of fools,
And only knows the golden rules
Of nature's saner, kindlier schools !
Sweet song that called us from the store
Of barren wisdom, dusty lore,
And drew us through the open door !
Adown the lilac-bordered way
We came to where the river lay
Girt with its bridal robe of May.
Along the stream the breeze is low,
Our steady paddles, moving slow,
Make gentle music as we go.
An open space and we behold
Blue hills engirdling, fold on fold,
The deep green meadows set with gold.
They pass, and now alone are seen
Green boughs overhanging, and between
Green banks the waters still and green.
With light and music everywhere
The spring has made creation fair ;
The song of birds is in the air.
So on we drift and drifting down,
Crowned with sunlight's golden crown,
Catch glimpses of the toiling town.
Anon we moor our barque, and keep
Noon's vigil where the shades are deep,
And pass the charmed gates of sleep.
Or turn to read no more the page
Of some defunct, tutorial sage,
But words that know not time nor age.
Lords of the lyre love taught to sing,
Swift birds of song with rapturous wing,
Dead poets who have loved the spring.
And so, 'mid music-haunted bowers,
We pass the slow declining hours,
And pile the idle boat with flowers.
Again we drift ; and now the pride
Of daylight fails, while far and wide
Long shadows crowd the country-side.
Behind the bridge the sun is set ;
His last red glory lingers yet,
And deepens into violet.
Regretful, with reluctant feet,
We turn beneath the elms to greet
The tumult of the gaslit street.
Map: Marston Bridge
Marston Bridge
- eventually to a road bridge with noisy speeding traffic - and a hundred yards further our immediate destination -
Site of Marston Ferry
Map: The Victoria Arms
Left bank with boat mooring. Pub food in a delightful country setting.
I had previously commented on how slow the food was here,
but recently I had hardly begun to sip my drink
when it appeared!
The following history is on the pub wall -
The first mention of a ferry at Marston is in 1279 in the Hundred Rolls, when it was
held as a freehold of the Manor of Headington by Ralph le Wal and Walter de Pilars,
two fishermen of Oxford.
The position of that ferry cannot be identified and indeed it is not marked on any map
before the Ordnance Survey map of 1876 when it is shown close to the public house.
Both the ferry and the fishery were important in the economic life of Marston Village.
The ferry made a very useful short cut to Oxford, two and a half miles away by road,
for the transport of agricultural produce - fruit, corn, beans and bacon.
The fishery, which was in the control of the churchwardens from as early as 1532
until at least 1720, had declined in commercial importance by the end of the eighteenth century,
when angling was permitted, and said to be a
'favourite diversion with the gentlemen of the university'.
The Gentleman's Magazine of 1800 (vol. 70 part 1) says that there was no out-lying habitation
to the village of Marston except the hut of a solitary fisherman, 'where he resides
for the purpose of attending his nets and his wheels'.
His catch included pike, perch, chubb, eels and grigs (a type of large eel)
as well as a species of roach peculiar to the stretch of the Cherwell called finscale,
reputed to be delicious. There were crayfish in abundance and these were sold in Oxford
at that time for three shillings a hundred.
The earliest record of a building on the site [of the Victoria Arms]
is in the census returns of 1841
when a fisherman, Charles Cantwell lived here.
On the tithe map of 1843 the building is called ALESWORTH and
the occupier was Susan Cantwell, grazier.
At the 1851 census she still lived here
but the house name had changed to FERRY HOUSE.
This name evolved by the 1861 census into MARSTON FERRY and it was the home of
Charles Fox, a fisherman his wife and four small daughters.
Then by the time of the 1871 census, William Bateman, described as a pensioner and publican,
was living here at what was then called THE FERRY PUBLIC HOUSE.
The 1881 census records that Victor Biovois, then 57, who was born in France,
was the publican of THE FERRY.
He planted arbours made of the
Duke of Argyll's Tea Plant (Lycium barbarum L)
on the river terrace, which are still [1991] well remembered.
It may be that the name of the pub was changed to mark Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887.
After purchasing the VICTORIA ARMS in 1959 to protect this part of the Cherwell Valley
from development and to preserve its charm, Oxford Preservation Trust's first landlord
was Fred Elkins.
He and his wife worked hard to transform the shabby house and ruinous outbuildings.
The roadway from Mill Lane was constructed for the delivery of supplies and the path
alongside the river to the ferry repaired.
A tearoom, which made the pub a popular destination on summer afternoons with punting parties,
was destroyed by fire in August 1963 and later rebuilt.
One of the landlord's duties was to maintain the ferry for the benefit of walkers
using the footpath between Summertown and Marston Village.
In 1971 the Marston Ferry Link Road was constructed and the Cherwell bridge made the
ferry virtually redundant; so the pub's landlord was
relieved of his obligation to operate it in 1975.
Wadworth & Co Ltd, the Devizes brewers, took a 125 year lease on the pub in 1986.
O.P.T. 1991
1885: Marston Ferry, Henry Taunt
Marston Ferry, Henry Taunt, 1885
© Oxfordshire County Council Photographic Archive; HT04951
1887: Marston Ferry with the river frozen. The ferrywoman stands ready to punt across the ice free channel. Presumably the ropes had been dispensed with since the punt could hardly go anywhere else! The three nearest figures are standing in the middle of the river.
Marston Ferry frozen in 1887
2004: The ferry post in the photograph below can be seen in the 1885 and 1887 photos -
The old Marston Ferry post still stands in 2004.
The ferry was a punt on a rope, and this was one of the anchorage points.
The trip from Bardwell Road Punting Station to the Victoria Arms
is the standard Oxford punting outing.
I have seen a web site that recommends at least several hours over it.
The distance is 0.6 of a mile (or fifteen
minutes gentle punting by my reckoning) ...
After a suitable pause here,
either return, as most people do,
or why not just go on to see the finest stretch of the puntable
Cherwell? The Bypass Bridge is another mile - and then
comes Water Eaton - and Islip weir is another 3˝ miles beyond that.
If you do return see
John Betjeman's guide
to the Cherwell from the Victoria Arms to Magdalen Bridge
Iffley Lock
Folly Bridge
Punting the Bullstake Stream
Cherwell from above Victoria Arms to Islip
1761: Warton -
COMPLAINT OF CHERWELL
All pensive from her osier-woven bower
Cherwell arose. Around her darkening edge
Pale eve began the steaming mist to pour,
And breezes fanned by fits the rustling sedge :
She rose, and thus she cried in deep despair,
And tore the rushy wreath that bound her streaming hair.
"Ah! why," she cried, "should Isis share alone
The tributary gifts of tuneful fame !
Shall every song her happier influence own,
And stamp with partial praise her favourite name ?
While I, alike to those proud domes allied,
Nor hear the Muse's call, nor boast a classic tide.
"No chosen son of all yon fabling band
Bids my loose locks their glossy length diffuse ;
Nor sees my coral-cinctured stole expand
Its folds, besprent with Spring's unnumbered hues :
No poet builds my grotto's dripping cell,
Nor studs my crystal throne with many a speckled shell.
"In Isis' vase if Fancy's eye discern
Majestic towers embossed in sculpture high ;
Lo ! milder glories mark my modest urn,
The simple scenes of pastoral imagery:
What though she pace sublime, a stately queen?
Mine is the gentle grace, the meek retiring mien.
"Proud nymph, since late the Muse thy triumphs sung,
No more with mine thy scornful naiads play,
( While Cynthia's lamp o'er the broad vale is hung,)
Where meet our streams, indulging short delay;
No more, thy crown to braid, thou deign'st to take
My cress-born flowers, that float in many a shady lake.
"Vain bards ! can Isis win the raptured soul,
Where Art each wilder watery charm invades ?
Whose waves, in measured volumes taught to roll,
Or stagnant sleep, or rush in white cascades :
Whose banks with echoing industry resound,
Fenc'd by the foam-beat pier, and torrent-braving mound.
"Lo ! here no commerce spreads the fervent toil,
To pour pollution o'er my virgin tide
The freshness of my pastures to defile,
Or bruise the matted groves that fringe my side :
But Solitude, on this sequestered bank,
Mid the moist lilies sits, attired in mantle dank.
"No ruder sounds my grazing herds affright,
Nor mar the milk-maid's solitary song :
The jealous halcyon wheels her humble flight,
And hides her emerald wing my reeds among ;
All unalarmed, save when the genial May
Bids wake my peopled shores, and rears the rippened hay.
"Then scorn no more this unfrequented scene
So to new notes shall my coy Echo string
Her lonely harp. Hither the brow serene,
And the slow pace of Contemplation bring :
Nor call in vain inspiring Ecstasy
To bid her visions meet the frenzy-rolling eye.
"Whate'er the theme ; if unrequited love
Seek, all unseen, his bashful griefs to breathe ;
Or Fame to bolder flights the bosom move,
Waving aloft the glorious epic wreath ;
Here hail the Muses : from the busy throng
Remote, where Fancy dwells, and Nature prompts the song."
This ode first appeared in the Oxford collection of verses on the death of George II in the name of John Chichester,
brother to the earl of Donegall, Gentleman Commoner of Trinity College.
It was afterwards published in the first edition of Warton's Poems, with variations in general not important.
The original (on the death of George II) had these two last stanzas instead of the above:
Then hither haste, ye youths, whose duty brings
To George's memory the votive dirge ;
Lo ! pensive Peace shall tune your solemn strings,
To saddest airs along my lonely verge ;
Here Grief with holy musings may converse
In sounds, that best shall greet the glorious hero's hearse.
Or if auspicious themes your harps would own,
In airy visions here shall meet your eye
Fair scenes of bliss : a blooming monarch's throne
Hung with the wreaths of righteous victory.
The decent trophies of domestic ease,
A people's filial love, and all the palms of peace.
Iffley Lock Folly Bridge Punting the Bullstake Stream
Cherwell from above Victoria Arms to Islip
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