If I'd been on the ball I'd've made the Admiral Nelson entry #111, but I wasn't so you get this pub instead! (A little 'joke' for the cricket fans amongst you!)
However, it has worked out quite well because the Bridge Inn is right by Bridge 111 on the Oxford Canal.
I'm fairly sure that my first ever visit to the Bridge was on my first ever canal trip in 1980 - we certainly moored at Napton on the evening of Monday 23rd April 1980 according to the Emma Jane log book. In those days it was called the Napton Bridge Inn.
The first photographic evidence is from Thursday 1st September 1994.
This was an evening stop and I'm fairly sure that we only had one pint here at the end of a pub crawl around the village of Napton.
Our next visit was three years later on Bank Holiday Monday 25th August 1997 at lunchtime. We arrived just in time to get food as they stopped serving at 2 pm! And, in the next hour, they turned away quite a large number of people who wanted to eat there. (Aaah! The good old days!!)
Although it is from a completely different angle it is still possible to see that the signage has completely changed and it is now a Greenall's pub.
Our next visit was on our way back from Oxford and what a change!
This was on the evening of Wednesday 25th August 2004 and it was now called The Bridge at Napton. It was completely transformed into a restaurant with a bar attached! But the food was good, so we didn't venture any further afield!
We were back again on Wednesday 30th May 2007 and again we spent the whole evening there.
Although not clear from this picture, the pub was largely unchanged.
We were back again two years later - the reason for such regular revisiting is because of the pub's relative proximity to the junction of the Oxford and Grand Union Canals.
This was on the evening of Thursday 10th September 2009 and the pub was still almost completely unchanged and we spent a pleasant evening there...again!
Our last canal visit was on Sunday 29th May 2011 and there had been some changes to the outside.
It was now renamed the Napton Bridge Inn, but only Bridge was in large letters. However, we only had one pint there and caught a taxi into Southam for the evening!
My final picture is from Sunday 26th August 2012 taken as I was passing by in the car.
Some slight changes visible, but as I've found out subsequently, this picture was taken at the time it was changing hands!
This pub is now closed waiting to see what happens next
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