Cropredy Old Mill

[Athy]

The bridge below Cropredy village (154 from memory) is often known as Old Mill Bridge. I had assumed that the tall building to its right, now used for storage, had been the mill in question.

However,m last weekend Mrs. Athy and I were exploring the wooded area on the other (towpath) side. Alerted by roaring-water noises, we came across what appeared to be a mill leat emptying into the River Cherwell a liitle way away from the canal. Now, this leat, or mill-race, or what you will, seemed to have passed under the almost entirely ivy-clad building beside the gateway in the wall near 'Vulcan's mooring. So, is this almost unnoticeable building in fact the old mill? If not, what is it?

Edited April 8, 2016 by Athy

[Laurence Hogg]

All the old maps show the mill and streams to be East of the canal, check http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=13&lat=52.1344&lon=-1.3335&layers=6

[Derek R.]

http://tinyurl.com/zjay8kh

 

Shows a warehouse cum stables West of the cut, mill building on the East side must have perished a while back.

[Athy]

Thanks, gents. From Laurence's old map I have found not only the position of the mill (so the building which we discovered was indeed the mill, or part of it) but also of the station, which I have looked for traces of without finding anything.

[Scholar Gypsy]

Very interesting - I know the area very well from my childhood.

 

Lasher - a new word for me - is I think the weir where the leat to the mill splits off - there are several of them on that stretch of the Cherwell.

[Aurelia]

To put the word 'lasher' in some context:-

 

And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time's here

In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames,

Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass

Where black-wing'd swallows haunt the glittering Thames,

To bathe in the abandoned lasher pass,

Have often pass'd thee near

Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown.... Matthew Arnold, 1822-1888, The Scholar-Gipsy

[Scholar Gypsy]

To put the word 'lasher' in some context:-

 

And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time's here

In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames,

Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass

Where black-wing'd swallows haunt the glittering Thames,

To bathe in the abandoned lasher pass,

Have often pass'd thee near

Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown.... Matthew Arnold, 1822-1888, The Scholar-Gipsy

 

Ah yes, thank you, I should have guessed that would tell me.

 

I really should read this poem sometime, not least as the boat is named after it. One of the reasons we always try to stop at the wharf at Laleham is that it is Arnold's burial place..

 

Edited April 8, 2016 by Scholar Gypsy

[Derek R.]

It's a long one:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172862

[Scholar Gypsy]

It's a long one:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172862

 

Yes, we have a copy in the bookcase somewhere... I've got about half way though it now ...

 

Anyway, I rather prefer the shorter poem that was specially written for my father by John Wain (1925-94), sometime Oxford professor of poetry. It was first read when the boat was "launched" in Oxford in 1980:

 

Honour the Scholar: he whose mind takes wing

over the fields of men’s ideas and dreams.

Honour the Gypsy, for he is the king

of tangled hillsides and the banks of streams.

Honour the Scholar Gypsy, built to float

the silver threads that stitch our England’s coat.

Over her leisured hours may there still cling

something of ranging dreamer and rough king.

Edited April 9, 2016 by Scholar Gypsy

[Aurelia]

Thanks for posting the stanzas by John Wain, SG - and what distinction that he should have written them for your father. They're a delight.