Power to the people of Osney

I was delighted to be invited last week to a birthday celebration on Osney Island. As the name suggests this is a watery place, for the 300 or so pretty, terraced houses in West Oxford built for railway workers in the 19^thcentury are surrounded by the stuff, sometimes still and tranquil but more often cascading, gushing, swooshing around and about it. There’s a lock and a weir; a small basin and dock that is home to the workshops and offices of the Environment Agency (once Thames Conservancy) the people who keep an eye on this part of the River Thames; there’s The Waterman’s Arms, now The Punter: even the name of the local pub is a nod to its unique position. Water defines this community. It wasn’t nicknamed Frog Island for nothing. And it’s central to today’s story. For this month we are raising a glass to ten years of clean energy produced by the island’s hydro-electric power station. Owned by the locals it is the latest in a long line of ways by which for centuries they have harnessed the power of their most valuable resource. 

From Folly Bridge I head west along the river. Under the disused railway bridge that echoes our not-so-distant industrial past when the circular metal structures of the city’s gasworks once dominated this part of Oxford. Over rickety walkways built to straddle the many brooks and tributaries that push out from the main channel. Along the towpath, today a froth of cow parsley and buttercups. A canoeist weaves his way downstream, a pair of swans glide gracefully past, and as I arrive at Osney lock the gates open to welcome in a small pleasure cruiser as it continues on its journey northwards. 

Here I’d arranged to meet Simon Collings one of the volunteer Directors of West Oxford Community Renewables, the group that manages the Osney Lock Hydro. He’s worked in Sub-Saharan Africa on creating sustainable green energy, so he knows what he’s talking about. And he’s also lived on the island for over 25 years, which makes him a double fit for the job. The hydro is housed behind a green fence in a low-slung building next to the lock, sitting in a well-tended, flower-filled garden with a mosaic sundial designed and created by local artist Josie Webber. The gates are open at weekends and visitors are encouraged to come and take a look at the structure which has an overhanging roof under which you can stand to watch the thing in action through a large glass window. Inside is a huge Archimedes screw. The river pours in at the top and flows downwards, turning the screw, and the generator to which it is connected. Hey presto electricity is produced. (On the day I visited the river flow was too low for it to be working but I got the idea). A bank of computers controls it all. The kilowatt hours sold to the Environment Agency depot and also fed into the local grid. The hydro produces enough electricity to power about 60 homes for a year. Shared between the residents Simon reckons that when working at full capacity, most of the houses on the island will be consuming some electricity directly from the power of the river. Solar panels on the roof also help towards the output. There’s even a fish pass installed alongside to ensure the safe passage of migratory species like salmon and eels as well as barbel, bream and pike. It seems they have thought of everything.

But then the relationship between the locals and the river is something that has long existed here. Osney features in Chaucer’s ‘Miller’s Tale’ as the workplace of the cuckolded husband John, persuaded to build himself a boat to save himself from impending floods – it was ever thus – with hilarious consequences. In the Middle Ages, it was Osney Abbey that dominated the area, a vast and wealthy complex run by Augustinian monks across the river from where we are now standing on the island. Indeed, there were probably a few islands then, marshy outcrops, but handy for summer haymaking. Before the brothers dug the cut, now the main river, changing its course to suit a burgeoning river trade; filling fast flowing rivulets with rubble, draining off ditches, reclaiming land where they needed it. They built a weir and a water course with a huge wheel that drove the vast heavy stones needed to grind corn for bread. One of many flour mills powered by water in Oxford, Trill Mill, Castle Mill, Kings Mill and the like.  By the time of the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536 the waterfront had become the abbey’s industrial powerhouse, with tanneries, brewhouses, slaughterhouses and fish ponds. After which the stone and its famous bell, Great Tom, was carted off to help construct Christ Church College.

The medieval foundations of the flour mill remain under what became its more modern Victorian counterpart. Standing derelict for years after a fire in 1946, the site was eventually converted into flats in 2013. I am looking at them now. The attractive red brick of the old façade remains. Built on top of the medieval mill race, the owners have installed a private turbine in the channel of water that courses underneath, supplying electricity to those living upstairs. The stream then flows out into a modern marina, open on weekends with a café and art gallery. The monks I am sure would have approved.

A few hundred yards upstream, Simon stops to point over the river to what was in 1892 Oxford’s first ever electricity lighting station. There are men in hard hats standing on rafts alongside a jetty made up of sandbags. They are slowly transforming the place into an executive study centre for the Said Business School. The front (or is it the back?) has retained the original Victorian design of polychromatic brickwork and stylish arched windows. It’s a lovely thing designed by industrial architects who believed that the quality of the building was a reflection on the achievements of the company inside. 

Back in the day coal was brought here by boat and used to heat water, creating steam generated electricity. There are those who still remember bathing in the hot water discharged by the boilers into the river. The place powered Oxford’s first ever electric light bulb (city folk stayed up late into the night to witness it) inspiring these lines from a longer poem by a young Hilaire Belloc when he entered the 1899 university Newdigate Prize poetry competition. 

Descend, O Muse, from thy divine abode,
To Osney, on the Seven Bridges Road;
For under Osney’s solitary shade
The bulk of the Electric Light is made.

Osney continued to supply the city’s electricity until 1968 when Didcot Power Station took over, the six cooling towers the defining skyline of my Wallingford childhood.  Now also long gone.

The Seven Bridges Road referred to above was the old name for the Botley Road. So much nicer. I think we should lobby for its return once the street is reopened to traffic. We have to brave it to cross over the river to get to Mill Street. Simon wants to show me what remains of the 13^th century mill here. Over Osney Bridge we go, where the resident heron stands on a small weir, hoping for a snack to swim by, while pedestrians above excitedly take pictures on their camera phones. Past the old Victorian cemetery. Built on top of the foundations of old Osney Abbey. And then on to what remains of the medieval mill itself. It stands in a private car park, an ancient archway on the side of what looks like an old stone storeroom. A gateway to the river. This is where it all began. The people of Osney are an ingenious lot. And all power to them. 

Main image credit: Osney Lock Hydro taken from a window in South Street by Suzanne Jeffrey

Panorama of the hydro and weir

Image credit: Simon Collings

The Archimedes screw, when it is working at full throttle.

Image credit: Simon Collings

Cycling along the towpath upstream I pass the entrance to Osney Marina

Osney Lock with the cottage next door. They still have a resident lock keeper who plays an instrumental role in managing the Osney Lock Hydro.

A pleasure boat passes into the lock. Once inside the water level will be lowered so it can continue its journey downstream. The white house behind is the old Mill Cottage, next to what was once a Victorian flour mill, built on the same spot as the one serving the Augustinian monks from Osney Abbey.

The old mill, now nicely converted into flats with their own private hydro underneath.

The Electric Lighting Station, now being converted into an executive centre for the university, where business leaders can come to engage in blue sky thinking.

And the inside workings in 1897 – this is what was heating up the water to make the electricity. Image courtesy of Chris Raworth.

This yoga studio was once an old garage. It is designed with a tiled floor and underground pipes, so that should there be a flood on the island, the water will flow through the building and into a soak away at the back. Electricity is installed high up on the walls so as not to be affected.

View of East Street from Osney Bridge

Osney Bridge

With its resident heron. Profits from the Osney Lock Hydro go towards helping local projects including those related to its wildlife.

What remains of the medieval Osney Abbey.

And some workings from the Victorian mill.

Osney Cemetery – one of the Victorian overflows, built on top of the foundations of Osney Abbey.

Well cheers to ten years of the Osney Lock Hydro.

Ruth Finar, an original founding director who has recently left the board, is cutting the cake. Others in the photo are left to right WOCoRe directors, Suzanne Jeffrey, Saskia Huggins, Ali Lloyd, Simon Collings (who took me on the tour) and Barbara Hammond. (Barbara’s husband David, who died recently, was the architect responsible for designing the powerhouse.)

Image credit: Helen White