After a busy week of browsing boats for sale, narrowboats for sale and barges for sale, (when everyone thought you were hard at work in your office) the weekend is the time to relax… and look at more boats!

The boat festival season continues into Autumn with Banbury Canal Day kicking off on the Oxford Canal this weekend. There’ll be the usual mix of live folk music, Punch and Judy, trader’s stalls and a beer tent, but this festival also includes storytelling, theatre and movies.

Organisers Banbury Town Council expect it to be the busiest Canal Day since the event started in 2003 as every boat mooring has been booked.

But what makes this boat festival different from others is that Banbury has Tooley’s Boatyard, immortalised in Tom Rolt’s book Narrow Boat. It was built in 1790, has a 200 year old blacksmiths’ shop and is an officially listed cultural site. Tooley’s was working until 1995 and is said to be the oldest continuous working dry dock in Britain. There is now a blue plaque there to commemorate the life of Tom Rolt.

This weekend the boatyard will showcase blacksmith demonstrations, engine displays, boat chandlery, and its dry dock. It is also the starting point for some guided historic walks. For tickets to entertainment at Tooley’s on Friday and Saturday visit www.theatreinthedock.org.uk

My other favourite boating book Ramlin Rose is based around Banbury. In the late 1980’s author Sheila Stewart resolved to find a boatwoman and write her biography. When she could not find one woman who could provide enough memories to comprise a biography she wove the memories of several women into the fictional life story of Rose Ramlin.

Banbury also has held an annual Hobby Horse Festival since the year 2000, and have their own local cakes. (Banbury cakes are a bit like an oval version of an Eccles cake, made with mixed fruit peel, brown sugar, rose water, rum and nutmeg.)

If all of that history isn’t enough to encourage you to visit then why not ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross, to see a fine lady upon a white horse? Apparently she has rings on her fingers and… no wait, that bit’s just a legend isn’t it? Will you be going to Banbury to find out?

Image from: Wikimedia Commons.

Peggy
www.narrowboatwife.com

You may also like:
Living on a Boat: The Boatshed Guide (free) / Tom and Dale Row the Grand Union / Boaters stay SAFE on the Cut / A slideshow of our boat of the moment./Blog Archive

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