Photos of locked boatyard at Jericho

It's 1am, I'm still not feeling great, and I nearly coughed up my supper tonight.  I've got to do another post before bed, so that you've got something to read tomorrow.  How to start?

One way is to set to work on something that annoys me.  Heaven knows the supply of irritatium in the universe is infinite.

Another is to browse back through all the recent blog posts of other boaters.   Using Google Reader I 'star' the ones I like and want to refer to later. Truth is, I never get around to commenting on those; wish I did.

A third way is to browse through my photos and see if one of them sets me off on a train of thought.  I often save photos to the desktop when I think the subject will surface again. 

I'll browse these until I find one...

Stop! Yes, here's one: 

These were the padlocked gates of the Castle Mill boatyard in Jericho, Oxford, in the summer of 2006, shortly after the users were evicted. 

Looking back on it, these photos were quite timely and evocative of the site.  I should have made them available earlier. 

The site remains shuttered and unused since the planning for developing it into canalside apartments fell through a couple of years ago.  The local boat-dwellers and their supporters are still hoping for a return to the site following the collapse of the developers in the recession.  It really is a sorry tale.

See, most recently, 'Buy boatyard call to council', where a group of them are shown looking miserable around these gates.  (I don't know about you, but every time I see a MOG* photo like this, I want the glum-faced people to lose, I just will them to lose, I can't help myself!)

I remember, years ago when I was new to boating, trying to sleep one summer under the tall tubular bell chimes of St Barnabas Church, almost counting the hours until the next chime,  and silently cursing myself to sleep.

This lovely little  church really is the centrepiece of the site, and whatever happens here must grant the towpath walker a view of it. It has its own little website - www.sbarnabas.org.uk - from where you can download a free 11-page booklet about the church and its history (here).

Talking of history, there's a whole page about 'St Barnabas in literature' - from the sublime (Thomas Hardy) to the poetic (John Betjeman) to the prosaic (Joanna Trollope).

The Jericho Living Heritage Trust describes:

One of the most devastating effects of the proposed boatyard development would be the loss of St Barnabas Church’s unencumbered visual impact across Jericho and beyond. A spokesman for the developers was rash enough to let slip that he regarded St Barnabas' Church as "an anomaly."

This is a strikingly unsympathetic way of describing one of the most significant buildings in the Jericho quarter; surely Oxford deserves a development which shows greater cultural and environmental awareness than this?

I've just spent an hour rambling; sorry.  But at least you've got something to read during your lunch hour.

[* What I call 'Miserable Old Git' photos - the staple of local newspapers when running stories of put-upon people with something to complain about]

Comments

[Alice]

We call them 'settee photos', because the interviewees are always photographed sitting on their sofa at home, looking sorrowfully at the camera.