Lyra's Travels

Fenny Compton 'tunnel'

Wednesday 11^th August

We set off early this morning from Banbury, After several locks the first land mark is Cropredy. This village hosts a huge folk festival this coming weekend and the place is heaving with boaters. We passed about a mile of moored boats before the village. One of them was our friends in Ramyshome, we met them up on the Leeds – Liverpools some years ago and then bumped into them again when they came to stay for a short while on the K&A. They are now on the move again and had decided to try the festival with friends who attend regularly. By the way the headline act this year is Status Quo so that should get them going.

After Cropredy there were more boats, again about a mile of them and then the start of the final flight of locks up to the summit pound. On one of the locks someone had left a reindeer skin with a sign on it 'looking for a good home'

We've come a couple of miles along the summit and found a mooring at Fenny Compton, a lovely spot. Before this we went through Fenny Compton Tunnel, a tunnel that is no more. It was opened up in about 1868 and is now just a narrow cutting. This a link to our position:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=fenny+compton&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=15.089889,46.538086&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Fenny+Compton,+Southam,+United+Kingdom&ll=52.174113,-1.373371&spn=0.001908,0.005681&t=h&z=18