14. Inside Banbury Lock on the Oxford Canal
#narrowboat #narrowboats #canal #canals #liveaboard #cruisingthecut
Come journey with me down into the depths of an English canal, to a lock at Banbury in Oxfordshire that was emptied for maintenance by the Canal and River Trust. Find out how the locks are maintained and what unusual things have been found at the bottom!
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Theme music: "Vespers" by Topher Mohr and Alex Alena, from the KZread music library
Пікірлер: 388
Well, I guess 2020 was a bit different than anticipated. Can't hold that against you, nice video.
@lucasrasmussen6386
3 жыл бұрын
The year that is hell
@roarster37
3 жыл бұрын
yeah 2020 isn’t guna work
@dmtribaltyphoon5001
3 жыл бұрын
Yeah that comment definitely didn't age well
@geek9642
3 жыл бұрын
Why what happened in 2020?🤔🤣
"2020 may be your next chance"..... what good timing to find the video!
"2020 will be your next best chance" Me in Sept. 2020: "Wanna bet?"
That boatyard is where the legendary Tom Rolt had his equally famous boat Cressy refurbished and fitted out for cruising in 1939. If only they had KZread then, there would have been some amazing videos. In the meantime, his book Narrow Boat, published in 1944, is required reading. It marked that era when canals where still an integral, albeit declining part of Industrial Britain. It was only a year after the publication of his book, which narrated his travels around the failing canal system of Britain with his first wife Angela, that had a meeting with Robert Aikman, and the road was set for them to found the IWA in 1946. Aikman was a literary agent, author and a dreamer, who fell in love with the romanticism of the canal system. Tom and Robert were to fall out in 1950; Tom Rolt wanted the canals regenerated for traditional trade, whilst Robert Aikman favoured the saving of everything inch of canal on its own merits. Tom loved the working boatsman and, despite being the pioneer cruiser, would not have been comfortable with canals as they now are. His second wife, Sonia, was a boater, albeit as a middle-class recruit as part of the war effort. In a sense, it started in Banbury. Without Cressy being fitted out for cruising on the eve of war in Tooley's Boatyard in 1939 there would have been no "Narrow Boat", and Robert Aikman, a literary agent and writer with no knowledge of waterwats, would not have been inspired to co-found the IWA. Who knows what would have been lost if that precious time had been lost? Tom Rolt didn't stick to canals. Once thrown out of the IWA, he put his energies into railway restoration, starting out on the Talyllyn Railway in 1950, the first "heritage railway" in the world. He died in 1974 aged 64 having bought the 14th century hall house at Stanley Pontlarge in Gloucestershire which his parents once owned. His widow, Sonia Rolt OBE, a stalwart of the preservation movement lived there until her death in 2014 aged 95. Cressy is long gone. She was that now very rare breed, a wooden narrow boat, and she went the way of such boats and sunk at her moorings, rotten through.
Something which i hadn't realised or thought of until watching this was how well Roman Numerals lend themselves to being chiseled into wood.
@oleregnarsson
3 жыл бұрын
its the same as with BIG letters, the less curvy it is, the better :)
@JasperJanssen
3 жыл бұрын
There’s a reason for that - they often were chiseled into wood and or stone.
So, I came across your channel as I'm interested in narrow boats. Thought to myself, this is very professional and well polished production, not normally the normal run of the mill youtuber. On further investigation I see that you used to be an ITV reporter. certainly shows, and a breath of fresh air. Thank you for making a light bulb (I'm currently going through your past videos) to the inside of a lock informative and interesting. Take care, looking forward to watching more.
@CruisingTheCut
4 жыл бұрын
Thank you
Just subbed, love your videos and your humor. I'm from Arizona, presently working in Kentucky. Before becoming a full time RVer, I was torn between a boat or a RV. I bought a 27' C-class RV that did not suit me. I now have a Jeep and a 13' fiberglass trailer, that I love. My temporary job will finish December 23rd. and I will be on the road again. I love your beautiful boat, it is a palace. I am looking forward to your adventures and the people you meet.
@CruisingTheCut
7 жыл бұрын
Thank you Linda!
I enjoy this channel. Thank you for doing it!
That was better shot and more interesting (detail) than many BBC news reports.
@CruisingTheCut
7 жыл бұрын
Thank you :-)
I was watching a previous blog about your passage through a tunnel and the darkness. I’ve installed white led strips on the side by the bottom of my truck for visibility. My thinking is that you could do the same along the sides of the boat on a switch to put on in the tunnel.
Just wanted to say we love your vlog. We live in Massachusetts and Florida. Nothing like narrowboats here. We have an Albin 27 trawler and love it. Keep up the great work. Bob and Sue
Been watching you on and of for about a year now and have started to bindge watch and also reading the comments. Can't believe your still replying to comments 4 years on. Much love from Ireland
@CruisingTheCut
3 жыл бұрын
Haha it's a rod for my own back - I set the comments to be moderated from the outset (to keep spam and arguments etc down) so now I have to read every comment!
@green_pies2762
3 жыл бұрын
@@CruisingTheCut love the commitment
I've been watching your later videos for about a year now. Finally got fully hooked and now I'm watching them all in order. What a peaceful way to live. Hoping one day I can live the same way though I may have to hop across the Pond to do it! Thank you for documenting and sharing your adventures!
Kudos to the trust and other community volunteers who keep the infra in good order. It's such a wonderful ecosystem to have around.
absolutely loving your blogs. Better than the telly.
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
Ah, that truly means a lot. Cheers.
Mate, I love these educational vlogs! Cheers
Thanks for the info on the lock. It was interesting to see it with no water in it. 👍👍👍👍😎
@CruisingTheCut
2 жыл бұрын
Thanks 👍
Bugger! I have only just seen this in 2021... 😂
Absolutely amazing they did this work that long ago without our modern methods. Dave thank you for what you cover and inform us on. We in the states had no idea on the canals, Please keep up the great posts.
I have been enjoying your narration of your journey, and am resolved to bring the wife and spend some time on a narrow boat for a bit someday. I was also amused to listen to you switch into your "documentary voice". Well done!
Well, it is 2020 but as I live in the US, and have no plans to travel across the pond, I guess I will have to wait for the next time.
As a youth, my friends and I used to jump across at that point! With the Mill arts centre nearby it used to be the place to meet girls!
Those planks date from Roman times, given the numerals
@alfredmilyard5076
2 жыл бұрын
🤣🤣🤣🤣
It's a treasure for me, old is gold 😃amazing nd intresting.
Would love to see the place where they manufacture the new gates!
@CruisingTheCut
3 жыл бұрын
Well then I have just the video for you! See kzread.info/dash/bejne/h3upxcSQmKebo5s.html
Thanks very much for this educational video, David, always keen to understand how the various bits of the canal network operate. 👍👌👏👏👏👏
Great video!!! I remember having great fun walking/playing in the Basingstoke canal in the 70s when part of it dried up .
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
+Joanna Pocock Thanks Joanna!
Would be nice to see the lock for it’s 2020 refurb. Found your channel just recently and find it all quite fascinating!
I wonder if they got chance to do this again for maintenance in 2020
@Andophonic
3 жыл бұрын
I was about to comment, that prediction might not've aged very well lol
I thought the number of mobile phones lost in the lock was hilarious (though I do sympathise with those who lost them). On a sailing holiday on the Norfolk Broads a few years back my husband lost his specs overboard just as we were coming into moor at the boatyard we’d hired the boat from (Hunter’s Yard heritage fleet). The Yard lent him an old rake with a mesh backing to fish around in the relatively shallow waters. The funny thing was that he fished up someone else’s glasses before he found his own pair. Fished up lots of mussel shells too.
Very professional work. It felt as if I was watching a documentary on the Discovery channel. Very well done. Thank you! :)
@CruisingTheCut
5 жыл бұрын
Thank you!
Fascinating! Just the right amount of information and history. I only just discovered you, but trust me, you are invited into my home every day now. The closest I ever came to such canal boating was in 1980 (when you were 8 years old?) when my late wife and I rented a houseboat for a week on the Trent-Severn Canal system. Not quite the same thing as narrow boating of course, but happy memories of locks and quiet evenings moored in beautiful locations. See you tomorrow. John
@CruisingTheCut
5 жыл бұрын
I was 11! :-)
@for.tax.reasons
3 жыл бұрын
John your comments are always so lovely to read as a fellow viewer you have such interesting insightful things to add 😊🌸 thank you for making the comment section a pleasant place
The phone on the far left is a Motorola which same model I bought around 1999/2000 period and is now unloved in a kitchen drawer, as for locks they alway scared me as kid mainly because my mate drowned in one.
@spartanxf
5 жыл бұрын
Harry Stevens how?
A lot of work obviously goes into your videos, much appreciated.
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
Thanks, yes - this one more so than any of the others. It's all downhill from here!!
I truly enjoyed this vlog because it reminded me so much of my 20 years with the U.S. army Corps of Engineers at LaGrange Lock & Dam on the Illinois Waterway. The lock chamber at LaGrange was much, much bigger (600 ft long X 110 ft wide X 30 ft deep), but the hydro/mechanics aspects are the same. I only knew of it being de-watered one time, but it was also very clean on the bottom. Just a super video and I really like the way you incorporated the interviews with the CR&T folks.
Fantastic video
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
Thank you!
Wow, what a great video. Love seeing how it’s done.
I'm starting to look for my first narrowboat and have really enjoyed all your blogs. I love the way you keep it simple and explain things so clearly. Keep them coming please!
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
Plenty more to come. Good luck with your search.
Episode 14 of my binge on your channel, it’s been very entertaining. Keep up the fantastic work, love from Dublin 💙
@CruisingTheCut
3 жыл бұрын
Thank you
Hi David, I came across this old video of yours through a KZread suggestion. Most interesting! Martin Zero did a video on the section of canal through the heart of Manchester, dated around 2 years ago, which was also very interesting. Hope your doing well and fighting off the boredom of not being able to cruise around. 🙁 Best Wishes, Toby.
Such history to be proud of
You really cant tell he used to be a journalist can you?! Keep up the good work.
Will be there, again, next week. I thought that lock was looking in good nick recently. Those boards are often stacked and locked together all up the canals, wherever there are bridges or small sections to close. All good basic engineering.
@wetcardie66
5 жыл бұрын
there are/were ? a pile of the same adjacent to where a bridge carries the the canal over a street near Burnley Football Ground (turf moor)
Always nice to see what's left behind in locks /canals when they get drained, too! :D
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
Apparently there was also a mattress - and a diamond ring!
@deevalkyrie
8 жыл бұрын
+CruisingTheCut you reckon that's why people go fishing with a sea searcher rather than than losing keys ;)
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
It's certainly tempting me to drag a magnet behind me as I cruise, just to see what turns up!
again a fascinating video good to see a lock in its entirety drained ,and more interesting is that the method of repair hasn't changed much, mobiles i can understand top pocket bend in lock trouser pocket same as but handcuffs different thanks again
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
Glad you liked it!
Awesome insight for the curious ....Especially us , from the United states... Keep us inform....
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
Thank you. Glad you enjoyed it :-)
Really interesting seeing inside a lock. Thanks for taking the time to share this.
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
No worries, thanks!
This is the only time I've heard the word "raddle" used for paint outside the works of Thomas Hardy. A very old English word!
very very informative. Thank you. Interesting to see a dry lock.
I lived in Banbury for a time in '98. I remember the lock and many other areas! The Smell of Coffee always reminds me as well!
Very well filmed, presented as well as very informative. Thank you for your trouble and generously sharing.
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
Much appreciated, cheers!
This is exactly like a regional news item! The editing, your presenting style and voice, the pieces to camera, vox pops. I keep thinking you’ll sign off with “From Banbury Lock, this is David Sbuffhjfvjkf, BBC Oxford 6pm News”. Brilliant!
@CricketsBay
4 жыл бұрын
He did used to work for ITV. They trained him well, apparently.
The first time I thought I must have misheard, but this is the third time so I've googled Fettling. Learn something new every day...
Fantastic video. Thanks a lot.
Really well presented, well composed camera work and editing, very interesting.
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it.
Well done David, another great vlog. I particularly liked the way you included your commentary with involvement from the “tradesman”. It adds that extra human touch! I watched a different video from someone else and it was so boooring with just the same chap droning on !
Hello Rick Stebbens here that is were my sister was born. Banbury. We lived on hill view crescent. I do like you're blogs. Thank you
VERY intreesting video, to see the more technical side of a lock, one doesn't really think about lock doors having to be replaced every 25 years or so
@TheHongKongHermit
4 ай бұрын
Yeah, I figured the water would be rough on them, but that's a really short lifespan. This video is now so old those doors are now in need of replacement (if they haven't already been). I guess in a zombie apocalypse situation the canal network would break down within a generation.
I found this very interesting, thank you.
well its 2020...a follow up would be cool
@CruisingTheCut
4 жыл бұрын
It’ll be exactly the same as it was then, honestly.
@chrisroyle4813
3 жыл бұрын
A smarter set of discovered phones this time round surely.
Entertainingly enough, after many seasons traveling the Trent Severn with the family, the construction firm that my father works for got a contract to restore several locks over the winter months, both newer ones, and some historic ones. It was an interesting tag-along, and an interesting conversation when we passed the stretch the following summer. The lockmaster was explaining that the locks were recently renovated, and my father got to chime back a cheeky but good natured "I know, I'm the one to secured the contracts and oversaw the work." Watching your videos takes me back to the fun times of my younger years, and also gives me a want to possibly head back over to the UK sometime and hire a narrowboat. I haven't been in ages, due mostly to the family there either emigrating, or passing.
I used to live just up the road. Wonderful gongoozling walks along the canal.
@CruisingTheCut
6 жыл бұрын
Mmm, I can imagine.
Me: Boy I cant wait to see this in 2020! 2020: Lol no
Another fantastic video.
Interesting video, thanks for sharing.
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
Thanks for watching!
Good to see Steve giving a good impression,,,
Hi David I like locks I goto Chester Canal to watch the boats nd the liocks very good regards John
That was great! Thanks for sharing.
Too professional, you're making everyone else look bad!!! Only kidding, another brilliant vid, thanks for posting Captain. Merry Christmas. Noodles
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
Thanks! Don't worry, back to handheld handycam vloggy style in the next ones :-)
Great love this type of videos !
Great video 'this is two hundred year old technology and it still works' .. Fantastic; if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I spent three weeks narrow boating on the Oxford Canal (Napton-Oxford-Napton) in Sep 16, whilst on holidays over in the UK, from Australia 🇦🇺- Banbury is a great town for narrow boaters, and yes, that Lock was in fine fettle when we used it👍🏻
@CruisingTheCut
6 жыл бұрын
Good for another 200, I hope! Cheers.
I didn't get to see this draining & won't get to see the next cause I live in America. Thanks for bringing the lock & your canal boat here. It looks like a lot of fun.
@CruisingTheCut
6 жыл бұрын
It is! Cheers
Always fascinating... as a bit of a wannabe archeologist, I’m always eager to see what can be found at the bottom of urban waterways.
REALLY enjoying your videos,,I love the history that you put in ,,,thxs and keep taking us with you,,gb
Great film
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
Ta
Very interesting, thanks
Très apprécié cette vidéo, merci 🙏 Canada
Been in lots of locks on a boat but never have seen one this way. Very interesting. Super video.
Best way to clean the glass is to use a wet rag andsome wood Ash the mild abrasive works a treat. It can be Done with coal Ash but it can scratch the glass.
I used to detest the " adds at the beginning and during some of the longer videos until I discovered they help you with funding albeit just a penny or two if that but oh well it all adds up to put pounds in your account slowly. As such I now watch them all from beginning to the end to do my part small though it is. Your videos are done professionally making them enjoyable and informative all at once and I have noticed seem to have become the required viewing from number one to the latest for anyone considering buying a narrowboat. Thanks again Cheers Jim
@CruisingTheCut
7 жыл бұрын
Watching the ads definitely helps! Thank you for putting up with them and supporting me (and any other KZread creators you enjoy). Cheers
This is really interesting! Keep em coming!
@CruisingTheCut
7 жыл бұрын
Thanks!
Fantastic! Thank you
@CruisingTheCut
6 жыл бұрын
Cheers Michael
Very interesting. And the notion that the lock is there since < 1800.
Great video, nicely done. You have found your niche brother. More please.
Fascinating. Thanks for sharing.
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
Cheers
While due to geographic issues That unfortunately won't be possible, it's a lovely coincidence that I cought this vlog in 2020
Most enjoyable. Nice to see repair work being done.
@CruisingTheCut
7 жыл бұрын
:-)
Brilliant story!
@CruisingTheCut
7 жыл бұрын
Thank you.
Interesting video really enjoyed it and cost of maintenance my goodness ☺👍
awesome thanks for sharing,ive always bee fasenated by locks
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
:-)
This was a very nice look at the canal. Impressed with your journey.
@CruisingTheCut
7 жыл бұрын
Thanks
Excellent video and very informative.
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
+djw100 Thank you!
Well done ! It's surprising how narrow the lock is. Once again, I'm surprise that the massive timber (oak) doors don't last more than 25 years before total replacement. The city of Venice was founded upon timber poles (I don't know the word in english) drawn into the soil, they last centuries…
@CruisingTheCut
3 жыл бұрын
The gates take quite a pounding from all the use
@beeble2003
3 жыл бұрын
The timber poles are called piles. But piles have a very different life to lock gates: a pile driven into clay soil is in an oxygen-free environment and at reasonably constant temperature. The lock gates are continually getting wet and dry and hot and cold and moving and are exposed to the air, so they rot and break.
I'm a recent subscriber & only follow one other narrowboat channel. I noticed so many narrowboat channels try to be 'stars' whereas yours & the other I follow are actually about things that are interesting & not about yourselves which I prefer. For what it's worth I had a houseboat on my final list of 3 properties but ended up with a house. And I spent countless hours up at the locks in Bath where I lived, fascinating!
@CruisingTheCut
5 жыл бұрын
Thank you; glad you enjoy the videos :-)
@ajadrew
5 жыл бұрын
@@CruisingTheCut Cheers..;-)
Very cool video.
@CruisingTheCut
8 жыл бұрын
Thanks
Fascinating
👍👍👍 🙏 Hope your feet are dry. Hiding out from the virus ☹️ Paul from Michigan. Safe canaling 🇺🇸🇬🇧
Bravo! As a fellow journo, hats off to you. Story well told.
@CruisingTheCut
7 жыл бұрын
Thank you!
I once cleaned a old yale lock with wd40. What a experience
@cormackeenan8175
4 жыл бұрын
weAreNotAloneHere , thanks for that lol moment
I used to live in Banbury, very nice market town.