Newbridge to Oxford

Swans, Bridges, Feudalism and Modernity: From Newbridge to Oxford

The Windrush joins the Thames at Newbridge,

Flowing beneath the elegant Taynton stone bridge,

Once a port of call for that Burford quarried stone

On its way to Oxford and London,

As well as a defeat for the Parliamentarians …

The sight of so many swans gliding on the waters,

So close to King Charles’ Oxford,

With their mute depiction of feudal hierarchy:

These birds are for monarchs old and new, not

‘Yoemen and husbandmen and other persons of little reputation’;

A heron interrupted the flow of my thoughts down stream

To Hart’s Weir footbridge – more English quaintness:

The weir has gone, but a right of way remains to Erewhon;

Then Northmoor Lock, before reaching literary Bablock Hythe:

Matthew Arnold’s scholar-gypsy,

‘Oft was met crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hythe,

Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet,

As the punt’s rope chops round’;

None of that now at the Ferryman Inn and its chalet purlieus,

Instead a meander inland before returning to the waters

At Pinkhill Weir, before another short roadside detour,

And a boatyard and chandlers and a stride to Swinford Bridge

(Swine-ford),

Where feudalism and modernity meet:

A toll bridge, built at the behest of the Earl of Abingdon in 1777,

Where a company still charges drivers today

(But not pedestrians!),

Then on to the now invisible Anglo-Saxon cultural importance

Of Eynsham, and Eynsham Lock,

Evenlode Stream and King’s Lock

(King denoting kine),

Underneath the Ox-ford by-pass

(You’ve heard its constant roar for over an hour),

To Godstow: ‘Get thee to a nunnery!’ –

‘The use of detectors is strictly forbidden’,

Fair Rosamund, Alice Liddell and Charles Dodgson;

Pat the astonishing free grazing common lands of Port Meadow:

Horses gallop free, while a train passes in the distance,

Kine, countless, standing in the waters,

Swans gazing at the stationary herds,

Port Meadow, a feudal gift to the burghers of Oxford,

Courtesy of Edward the Confessor,

Honoured by William the Conqueror;

But the industrial revolution was calling:

A boatyard, a footbridge, Osney Bridge, a canal,

And a train back to Stroud.