On one of those blisteringly hot days we have had recently when the summer air is suffused with heat, I head downstream along the river from Folly Bridge in search of a secluded watery spot to cool down. I am not normally a wild swimmer, but I’d been tipped off by a reader that such a place was to be found this way, a couple of miles along the towpath. Through clouds of meadowsweet mixed with cornflowers and purple knapweed, past Iffley Lock, and under Kennington Railway Bridge. An eyot called Rose Island – on which stands a large privately owned residence, accessible only by foot over a narrow, wooden, arched bridge. You cannot step on to the island without invitation, but you can swim around it. And so it is that I find the stone steps that my guide has suggested as an easy way in and lower myself gently into the refreshing stream.
Another adventure I think as I navigate across the main channel of water past a raft of noisy ducklings, and then begin my circumnavigation around the island, clinging to the contours of the banks and staying as near to the land as I can without getting caught in the streamers of weeds clinging around my bare legs.
But then this weekend is the third anniversary of my very first Oxford Sausage blog and so it seems apt that such an event should be celebrated in this way. In the spirit of the aim to embark on a weekly outing in and around the city with a view to discovering something new, that I had set myself three years ago.
This past year has had its fair share of riverside revelations. I’ve been aboard the fanciful floating pavilion that is the Corpus Christi barge built almost one hundred years ago as a viewing platform for intercollegiate rowing races, and now in need of some repair. I passed it nestled into the quiet of Kidney Stream on my way here. I’ve sailed with Graham Andrews, the third generation of his family to skipper a Salters Steamer passenger boat, and at 82, clearly still enjoying being part of the ‘Salter’s navy’. And then I’ve been the guest of the guys up at the Cherwell boathouse, Roger and Bob, as they get ready for the new punting season, making good the old flat-bottomed boats and putting a shine to the new with age old expertise.
In truth it’s not surprising there are so many watery tales to tell, considering the reason people settled in Oxford in the first place was because it was on the confluence of two rivers. But the city has plenty more to offer besides. This year I have made jam from a black mulberry tree planted by James I in the gardens of Balliol College – he’d wanted to kickstart a silk trade, but he bought the conserve-making variety of the fruit tree, not the white mulberries that silk worms prefer. I have caught the train to Islip in search of a belligerent bear, once the pet of William Buckland, feted as being the first to make a scientific description of a dinosaur. And to my great delight and after much sleuthing discovered an ancient doorway that once belonged in Beaumont Palace, the royal dwellings built just to the north of the city in the 12th century for Henry I, in the Carmelite Priory on Boars Hill. So many stories. So much generosity in recounting them from the people who live here. It has been such a pleasure to meet you all.
As it turns out this little island also has its own tale to tell. Once upon a time there stood an inn called the Swan on the spot where the private house is now. Charles Dickens wrote about it in his Dictionary of the Thames. Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) mentions it in his diary of 1856, when he visited on a boating trip in a double skiff rowed by Harry and Ina Liddell (brother and sister to the real life Alice in Wonderland). They had brought a picnic and stopped here to purchase ginger beer and lemonade. At one time the pub even employed its own ferryman to bring drinkers across the river from Kennington. At night time, the garden was strung around with lanterns so he could see his way. And go further back and the place was used to harvest osiers, the long slender twigs of willow used to make baskets and furniture. A tiny strip of land with so much history.
Today my swim around Rose Island has marked the end of another year of musings. Immersed, enveloped, surrounded by overhanging trees, on an eye line with the bright blue damselflies skimming across the dappled shade. Another reminder of the rich seam of stories the city has to offer.
But for now I am taking a summer break. There will still be a weekly Sausage. For I am taking the opportunity to revisit some of my previous posts. A chance maybe to catch something you have missed.
Until September. When I hope to return refreshed. I do hope you will continue to keep me company.