Simultaneously sad and pleasing is that habit of builders to name their developments after whatever was on the site before they obliterated it.

Cases in point include Osney Mead Industrial Estate, commemorating a water meadow that once belonged to the vanished Mediaeval abbey and cathedral of Oxford - where this magazine now has its office.

Or Gloucester Green (nothing green about it); or Minchery Farm; or Peartree Roundabout - the list goes on and on.

Oxford's watery past is well represented, with references to mills and the like, but what, I wonder, will Castle Mill Boatyard, Jericho, recently closed down after more than 150 years, be called when it becomes a housing estate?

British Waterways has presided over the transformation of the canal system in Oxford, as elsewhere, from a working part of the infrastructure to a leisure industry.

Now it has to balance an ever-increasing demand for houses against its core business of providing well maintained canals for walkers, fishermen, and people in boats.

As late as 1956, the Oxford Canal, built in 1790, ended in a large pool, a sort of marina, now Worcester Street car park, outside Nuffield College.

British Waterways spokesman Eugen Baston said: "People think we are a social service but essentially we are a business. We received about £20,000 a year for Jericho boatyard which, when you deduct management fees goes down to about £10,000.

"On the other hand, by selling it for £4m we can earn about £168,000 a year in interest."

However, to some extent British Waterways is the provider of a public service, since it receives funding from the Department of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), although it aims to become self-sufficient in six years time.

Revenue Now that funding has been cut back by 15 per cent which in turn has resulted in plans for 180 redundancies among British Waterways' 1,926 employees.

Mr Baston said: "Since April, DEFRA has cut back its payment to us from £62.5m to £53.4m. The redundancies will not affect bankside workers in Oxfordshire. Most job losses will occur among office workers employed outside Oxfordshire."

On top of DEFRA's grant, the organisation makes £99.5m a year from licensing boat users, sponsorship, advertising, etc. Then it receives extra money from local councils and the Heritage Lottery Fund, bringing its total income to about £180m.

British Waterways is the third largest owner of listed structures in Britain, owning 2,700 of them.

The advertising revenue point highlights a difference between the Oxford Canal in the city centre and canals in London.

Look behind many an advertising hoarding in the capital and you will find a hidden canal. In Oxford, by contrast, the canal is open for all to enjoy.

Its history provides a long-term insight into the economic development of Oxford, particularly how energy needs have been met since the beginings of the Industrial Revolution, and how evolving transport systems have shaped industry.

Originally, fishermen and bargemen on the Thames were eclipsed by the boatmen who came with the opening of the canal. Then the canal itself gave way to the railway and now the railway has largley given way to the car.

And all the time the population has been relentlessly rising, with more and more of us needing houses. With a population of just 57,399 in 1901 (up from 12,690 a century before), the arguments about Oxford expanding into the surrounding countryside had not really begun.

By the end of the Second World War the city's population had officially topped the 100,000 mark - in reality much more, since unplanned development had occurred immediately outside the city limits - and by the 2001 Census it had hit 134,248. And the demand for canal-side houses rocketed.

The canal was built with the purpose of bringing coal from Staffordshire and Warwickshire to Oxford as a replacement for the sea coal upon which the city had until then been dependent.

The expensive sea coal came from the North-East of England. It had been shipped to London, transferred to barges, and then ferried up the Thames to Oxford.

The 27-mile stretch of canal between Banbury and Oxford came into being with the support of all the powers that be in the 18th-century county - the university, the City Corporation, the Duke of Marlborough, and Lord North, MP for Banbury and Prime Minister.

In the face of competition from the railways, the canal nevertheless declined only slowly. Its warehouses were better than those provided by the rail companies and some breakable goods, such as pottery, were better transported by water.

Only slowly, too, did its role as a coal transporter decline and the Jericho coal wharves close down, some becoming cruiser hire centres.

As our picture shows, as late as 1956 people were still collecting coal from them. And only in 1968 did the Transport Act officially designate the Oxford Canal as a recreation and amenity waterway.' That just leaves the question of what to call that former boatyard when it becomes a housing estate. King Coal Yard perhaps?