Thus the tolls for all coal traffic on the first 2 miles (3.2 km) of the Oxford Canal were to go to the Coventry company, while tolls which the Coventry Canal collected for the first 3.5 miles (5.6 km) of travel by all goods except coal which had passed through the junction were to be given to the Oxford company.

Then they tried to obtain a second Act of Parliament, which would remove the clauses, but this was defeated by opposition from the Coventry Canal and its supporters.

They agreed that they would accept the compensation payments if the Coventry Canal completed their line to Fradley Junction within five years.

They obtained a mandamus writ from the Court of King's Bench, which compelled the Oxford company to open the junction.

The canals ran parallel for 1 mile (1.6 km), costing the boatmen time and the carriers money.

[7] In commercial carrying times, the junction was a major rendezvous for working boats awaiting orders for their next cargo from the many pits in the area.

It originally housed a Newcomen steam engine, which was brought from Griff Colliery, where it had already worked for 100 years, and which was used to pump water from mines in the area to supply the canal.

Named Lady Godiva, it was decommissioned in 1913 but left in place, and eventually moved to the Dartmouth Museum in the 1960s, as the Newcomen Memorial Engine.