In Search of a Winding Hole*

Towards the end of the 18th century, the town of Banbury had 15 golden years, when the main waterway route from Birmingham to London passed along the Cherwell valley on the Oxford canal, to join the Thames at Oxford and follow it to the capital. Coal from the Warwickshire coalfields around Coventry would have gone the same way. This all brought prosperity to Banbury, and led to the establishment of Tooleys boatyard to service the working boats

This belle epoque was eclipsed when the 'Grand Junction' canal - subsequently becoming the Grand Union - was opened, offering a direct, faster route to London, without the uncertainties of river navigation. In fact, investors in the Grand Junction were ultimately disappointed as its commercial viability began to be undermined by rail transport almost as soon as it opened. The canals entered more than 200 years of decline, until their mid-20th century revival as a leisure resource. Remarkably, Tooleys survived all this and still exists today as a working boatyard, albeit hedged about with terms like 'heritage' and 'ancient monument'

Tooleys was also threatened by (but evaded, with the help of all that 'heritage') two phases of 'redevelopment' of the canal-side area as a shopping centre, first in the 90s and again just before Covid struck. The property investor/developer who had been selected to undertake the most recent phase pulled out before contracts were signed, but the Local Authority opted to fund the project from borrowing and repay the debt and interest with rental income. The old empty BHS store was incorporated into the development. Since then, the town centre has lost Debenhams, Marks & Spencer, H & M and many smaller businesses. Lidl have moved in

Today we went for a look. It is well designed, looks well built. For a modern development, it is quite imaginative architecture. It has created a pleasant urban space. But on a warm (for February!), dry Friday morning, the car parks were empty, the streets and indoor areas were hushed and sparse, unoccupied shops were everywhere. I mustn't overstate: we had a lovely time, we bought what we wanted, the town is clean, well-tended, clearly still loved; the atmosphere is far from desolate or down-trodden. But in the age of the Internet and the out-of-town, I don't see how this can endure and prosper, any more than the Grand Union could in the age of steam

In the 1930s, Tooleys fitted out a boat called Cressy, owned by a man called Tom Rolt. He wrote a book called Narrow Boat about his travels on her, which did as much as anything to kick-start the revival of the waterways from their near death experience. The sunken, listing hulk in this picture is awaiting its turn in Tooleys (their yard is on the right, just beyond the boat). According to the notice on it, it is the last wooden boat built in 1940 by an outfit called Nursers, at Braunston, where the Grand Union meets the Oxford. It is also to be resurrected. Renaissance can happen

* A 'winding hole' is a widened area of canal, or a short branch, where you can turn a narrow-boat around