" I thought a canal was a grimy place and that we should have a great deal of rough company... but this is quite beautiful, and we have it all to ourselves."

This comment by a Victorian visitor to the Oxford Canal still rings true today. A step or two along the towpath and the bustle of Oxford and of the 21st century is soon forgotten. This is a calmer, gentler world of trees and water, boats and swans, anglers and birdsong, decidedly still the 'half town and half country' it was in the early 1900s.

The century-old description of Isis Lock is still apt too. This ' little toy-box kind of a basin' is where the canal and River Thames meet. The diminutive tranquility of the scene disguises the Lock's troubled past , and adds intrigue to the puzzle of its derogatory local name of 'Louse'.

If the canal in Oxford still provides glimpses of its unchanged past, the Thames is even more timeless. In the 1790s a boat passenger found 'scenes which the most playful imagination could not hope to find in a navigable river, winding round a large and populous city'. Such ' scenes' still exist. The river is most notable for its picturesque views and changing moods, the canal for the stirring story of its survival. Both waterways are testimonies to the many individuals - resourceful , eccentric, or notorious - who have shaped the precious and vibrant 'living heritage' we see today.

The canal towpath or a Thames footbridge might seem a world away from the city's famous dreaming spires - yet both waterways are intimately linked to the city's past in ways that are both enduring and surprising . Want to know more? This is the tour which will tell you.