GRAND UNION CANAL (CENTRAL)

摘要

At the end of the first part of our journey south eastwards from Birmingham to London along the canal which forms the backbone of the south Midlands waterways, we reached Napton Junction. Here, the canal that we'd been travelling on - which had historically been the Warwick & Napton Canal - met the earlier Oxford Canal at a T-junction: turn right for the southern Oxford Canal leading to Oxford and the River Thames, or left for the northern Oxford Canal heading for Rugby and on into the Warwickshire coalfield that provided much of its traffic. But a little curiously given that our final destination is also the Thames, we take a left turn here - away from Oxford and towards Rugby. A glance at the map will explain this slight oddity: the next five miles of route are in effect shared by both the Grand Union and Oxford Canal routes, but with both of them doing a bit of a 'wiggle' so that the northbound Oxford forms the southbound Grand Union, and vice versa. Well, when I say 'forms' - it's actually still the Oxford Canal. It was built first, and its owners negotiated favourable terms in exchange for not opposing the construction of the newer and more direct links which form today's Grand Union - including heavy tolls for through traffic passing along those five miles.