River Severn
by Russell Grant
It doesn't take a geographical genius to know that any city or town of prestige, success and importance has a river running through it. A place requires not only a good water supply but also a highway to get in and out of the home base and onto the high seas. In the days before good roads it was the river that was at the heart of positive communications.
Whether for supplies, invasion, recreation or trade a river is a must. And if you're going to have a river then the Severn or Hafren is about as good as you can get. The River Severn or Afon Hafren at 219 miles is Britain 's longest; it rises on Plynlimon /Pumlumon – the Five Beacons – on the borders of Cardiganshire and Montgomeryshire in the Cambrian Mountains .
For Gloucester the River Severn has proven to be something that little bit more special. As an inland port it is probably more in-land than any other in the country and is at the lowest point on the river where it is bridgeable. The tidal surge (which has become a legend and a local phenomenon known as the Bore) rushes up as far as the city itself, good for fish and great for surfers.
Gloucester 's earliest origins suggest there was some kind of British habitation around this part of the Severn probably to the north of where the main city, evolved and developed. It is also more than likely that natural activity in or on the river gave Gloucester its name of the bright shiny place perhaps through light dancing on the water or fish shining like silver within its ripples.
The Romans recognised its worth as being ideal for incursions into the British camps and strongholds in what we now call Wales or Cymru. The Anglo Saxons certainly knew Gloucester was the perfect place to build a royal palace and King Alfred's daughter, Athelflaed, favoured the city creating holy sites, increasing the royal connexion and transforming it into an important fortified borough, which included updating the inner city road network, and making it a prime HQ in her fight against the Danes and as an important centre for the powerful Kingdom of the Mercians.
The Normans too enjoyed the city with William I taking it easy over many Christmases there, and the Plantagenets left one of their monarchs, Edward II, in situ forever more in the cathedral, which added to Gloucester 's halo as angel of the Severn . Richard III gave the city the same civic powers as London and to this day much of the local government of Gloucester is based on his expansive and influential charter.
Elizabeth I blessed Gloucester with port status – which meant that slippery traders and merchants who bypassed Bristol and sailed straight up the Severn to save on import/export duties got a rude awakening from 1580 when the city could levy its own taxes on shipping, much to Bristol's chagrin.
By the time of the Stuarts leading up to Cromwell's wars and the Siege of Gloucester, the river proved, yet again, how important it was as a base for transport into the West, Midlands , North and South west. The power of the Severn has never waned.
From the Hanoverians onwards Gloucester may have lost its lustre as a royal base but the name continued to live on either in warships, fighter planes, dukedoms or Beatrix Potter fairy tales with one HMS Gloucester even paying a ceremonial visit to the Docks in 1911 before war broke out.
The Severn Bore (almost as famous as the Severn Bridge !) is one of those bizarre things that you can imagine in the darker ages of history the locals must have wondered what on earth was going on. Perhaps Noah and his flood sprang to their gullible minds or the Gods were angry and sending a tsunami to show that they were angry: worse still was it the end of the world? When the science of navigation and tides discovered the reasons were more elemental than divine spirits who were unhappy and seeking retribution, a little bit of mystique was taken out of the Bore. I am grateful to Russell Higgins excellent page on the Severn Bore; to really discover when you can see it he has a website with timetables of when it can be seen so you can plan your trip around what you find out on http://www.severn-bore.co.uk/
But what is the Severn Bore? Basically it is a large surge wave that rushes up the estuary of the River Severn. The river estuary has to be the right shape and the tidal conditions as such that the wave is able to form. The Severn Bore is large by world standards but by far the biggest is the Ch'ient'ang'kian (Hang-chou-fe) in China . It is heard advancing at a range of 14 miles; you can even hear the Severn Bore some miles off.
Look at a map of Wales and the West of England to see the loop de loop around the Severn estuary. The water is funnelled into an ever narrowing channel as the tide rises it forms the large wave. The river's course takes the Bore from around 5 miles wide to just a mile in width in a very short distance and before long it is down to a width of just a few hundred yards. By the time the river reaches Minsterworth it is less than a hundred yards across, maintaining this width all the way to Gloucester .
The word Bore was coined by the Hwicce, the Anglo Saxon river dwellers on the Severn (interestingly the Norse equivalent of the tribal Hwicce is Viking) – and the Norse meaning bara translates as a wave or swell. The Germanic and Norse languages share many similarities and Bore and Bara are a good example of this. Its meaning boils downs to a tidal surge on a river; a single high wave of water resembling a wall.
The Bore has now become a point of focus for surfers with the world surfing record held by a Gloucestrian, well Hempsted chap to be exact, Dave Lawson, who stayed on the surf for 5.7 miles and on his board for 35 minutes! Apart from surfers, wind-surfers and canoeists also can't get enough of this unusual event when they're not messing about on the river.
Food from the river has always been in great demand; wild salmon, eels and elvers and lampreys. Lampreys are similar in shape to eels. Rather gruesomely they feed on fish flesh, like leeches clamping onto their victims sucking out their bodily fluids and rasping away at the flesh.
If I now tell you lampreys were regarded by early Gloucester folks as delicacies don't squirm! Gloucester has long been famous for its lampreys. By ancient custom, the City of Gloucester , in token of its loyalty, used to present a lamprey pie annually, at Christmas, to the sovereign. The pastry generally being made out of the fat of the fish. Lampreys being at a premium and out of season, it cost a lot to send such a tasty pie to the monarch so the custom died out in 1836 except for special order at coronations.
The Severn became famous for its lampreys, and Gloucester noted for its peculiar mode of stewing them. A well-stewed Gloucester lamprey was a luxury that was sought after. King Henry I died of ptomaine poisoning through eating the wriggly parasitic things. He became ill not long after arriving in Normandy and died December 1 st 1135 at St Denis-le-Fermont near Rouen .
So great was the demand for lamprey in the reign of King John (1167-1216)that a writ was issued to the Sheriffs of Gloucester forbidding them when first landed to be sold for more than two shillings a piece. The monarch also levied a fine of 40 marks on the city of Gloucester for failing to "pay him sufficient respect in the matter of his lampern." It didn't do him any good as in 1216 he contracted dysentery, some say through over-eating and some say the culprits were too many lampreys, he died at just 48 years old – was it the fish or was he poisoned? The jury is still out on this.
A royal order to the sheriff in Gloucester in the 1230s declared: "after lampreys all fish seem insipid to both the king and the queen, the sheriff shall procure by purchase or otherwise as many lampreys as possible in his bailiwick, place them in bread and jelly, and send them to the king while he is at a distance from those parts by John of Sandon, the king's cook, who is being sent to him. When the king comes nearer, he shall send them to him fresh."
In the reign of Edward III they were some-times sold for eightpence or tenpence a piece, and often produced a much higher price. In 1341, Walter Dastyn, sheriff of Gloucester , received the sum of £12, 5s. 3d. for forty-four lampreys supplied for the king's use.
Queen Victoria 's chef Charles Elme Francatelli wrote the following on lamprey: "one being the sea or marine lamprey, which is abundant at Gloucester and Worcester , where it is dressed and preserved for the purpose of being given as presents. The lamprey is considered to be in best condition during the month of April and May when it ascends the Severn from the sea for the purpose of depositing its spawn."
Eels and elvers are best caught at night and close to the banks where the water swills and froths at speed against the land. Just before a Bore arrives men are stationed along the riverbank and in chain-reaction fashion the alarm goes up as to how far it has progressed. Nets are put into the water with the open mouth facing downstream and the fish are caught as they swim against the flow.
Elvers are closely related to the lamprey and can be caught as far north in the river as Tewkesbury – in some Severn-side villages such as Frampton there were even elver-eating contests. Between the great wars, in the 1930s, elvers were still being caught in the Severn and sold by fish-criers throughout the city streets. They have become much less frequent so much so the price has been hiked to astronomical realms and are controlled in breeding stations along the river. One reason the price is so high is that many are shipped live for breeding for sushi in Japan , China and also over to Ulster to be smoked. But fear not as the Severn and Wye Smokery on the edge of the Forest of Dean smokes not just eels but salmon too.
The low lying Severn valley was also conducive for cheese-making and Double and Single Gloucester goes down a treat to this day. Way back in time, in the 1300s Gloucester cheeses were sent to nuns in Caen , Normandy , obviously Brie and Camembert gave way to Gloucester in this instance.
The Severn was an industrial artery with iron being sourced at the Forest of Dean and Robinswood Hill. From tributaries of the Severn , little boats enabled the mineral to be sailed into Gloucester Quay. Kings as far back as Edward the Confessor used Gloucester iron as the city manufactured everything from horseshoes to nails, they were sent all over the country, exported to the Continent and undoubtedly kept the horses hooves protected all the way to the Crusades.
Gloucester 's giant castle was built on the banks of the Severn circa 1110, perfect for transporting men, weapons, explosives, food and drink in and out of the place.
The quay during the Saxon period was located where the third arm of the river coursed through the city to the north of Westgate Street . When the channel silted up a later river quay was constructed and is first mentioned in 1390 during the reign of King Richard II.
This enabled Gloucester to take ships of around 10/30 tonnes and they could sail as far as Worcester and Shrewsbury upstream and down to Chepstow and Bristol . But the world became the city's oyster when good old Queen Bess awarded a charter giving Gloucester port status and from that time on ships could sail legitimately in and out from the seven seas into the Severn . This meant a customs house was built in 1581 most probably on the same site as the current 18 th century building.
With Queen Elizabeth's charter came port prosperity, the height of trade coming in the late 1700s when Britain had a burgeoning network of colonies springing up worldwide.
It wasn't long before Gloucester needed to improve its river communications due to problems with river restrictions that meant bigger ships could only reach the city on the highest of spring tides. This led to the idea of a canal to increase trade and be less reliant on the elements. Welcome the Berkeley or Sharpness to Gloucester canal.
This was water-breaking stuff as the proposal was to link the River Thames to the River Severn thereby opening up trade with Oxford, London and beyond, and vice versa through to Gloucester and English Midlands. In1793 work began on 17 miles of canal but money had run out by 1800 with only 8 miles completed! It was 17 years later before work was resumed after the British had beaten the French at Waterloo, by which time Berkeley had been dropped in favour of entering the river at Sharpness reducing work by about a mile, and in 1827, 30 years later and a mile shorter it was complete.
During this time the docks weren't idle as a graving dock was given the go-ahead in 1818. This is where a ship can be repaired. Once the ship is in the graving dock the water can be pumped out, giving access to below the water line. 'Graving' means 'scratching' somewhere you went to scratch off barnacles, rust and anything that can be hazardous to the ship or slow it down in the water.
With the repeal of the Corn Laws a new dock was added called, as everything else was at this time, the Victoria dock after Her Madge. It was also known as the Salt Basin as salt had been a precious commodity since time immemorial and with the major saline town, Droitwich, upriver in Worcestershire it made it easy to transport the precious white stuff to Gloucester Docks and the world beyond, most especially to other parts of the British Isles itself.
Gloucester was hosting seaman of all nations so a Mariner's Chapel was built. On Sundays during the first half of the 1800s the dock gates were closed and church was the main focus of all God fearing souls. However, it was not considered right and proper that salty old sailors should mix with the city folks so in 1849 the quaint Mariner's Chapel was opened and what happened? All the city folks went there!
St Nicholas at the Bridge church was always known as the sailor's church long before the wee chapel was opened. St Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors as well as dockers and fishermen. It originally guarded the new bridge built across the river in the 12 th century. The parish included part of the medieval quayside on the third arm of the Severn which has now silted up and vanished and of course long since moved to its present position.
One of the highlights of my visit to the city was a trip around the Docks on a delightful little boat, the Queen Boadicea II, famous in her own selfless right for leaving the safety of the Severn and heading across the dangerous waters of the English Channel and at the mercy of Nazi dive bombers at Dunkirk on her mission to rescue the brave soldiers of Britain in World War II. You simply must take a trip on her, so much history on the decks of one little boat and we owe her so much and so smart since her restoration in 2005. Spend time in the brilliant National Waterways Museum – don't miss it now. It is based in the Llanthony Warehouse built in 1850 and tells you everything you ever needed to know about, well, British Waterways and of course the great river that is the life blood of this great city.
In 1980 four hundred years after Gloucester gained port status, HRH the Duke of Gloucester declared the celebrations for Port 400 well and truly open. And to show the age-old attraction that living by water brings even the city council moved to the North Warehouse at the Docks. As you read this the docks are going through a massive gentrification to make it one of the most upmarket places to live in Gloucester .
The River Severn and its waters remains a part and parcel of Gloucester .
Queen Boadicea II
Built as a sturdy passenger boat, with a 65ft all steel hull, Queen Boadicea II. Her 3ft draft was just fine for the River Thames, where she started working life when her mistress Mrs C M Smith, used to ply between Westminster and Greenwich in 1936.
This spunky little vessel was fine and fit to sail across the notoriously fickle English Channel providing the weather and sea remained calm but not for crossing it on a bad day.
But if you're a boat called the Boadicea the spirit of the warrior Queen of the Iceni's namesake was bound to shine through and rise to any challenge which is precisely what happened on Friday 31 st May 1940. Trapped on the beaches and shores of Dunkirk the soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force were gradually being hemmed -in by Nazi planes and panzer divisions and when the cry for help went up our British servicemen had their backs to the sea.
A call to arms was sent to the boats of Britain to come to the rescue. From all over the country the call was answered by a motley crew of wonderful little crafts of every shape and size with hearts as big as the QE2.
Boadicea II was one of the boats that answered the SOS and headed to the still calm waters of the Thames where they were to muster at Twickenham and Teddington in Middlesex, from there they would head out passing the City of London and into the unpredictable swell of the North Sea .
On the day a fresh on-shore breeze developed. QBII, commanded by Lieutenant J S Seal, RNR, avoided the beaches due to dangerous conditions from sky and sea and made straight for Dunkirk harbour. There she met heavy shelling made worse by enemy air attacks from the German dive bombers and fighters.
Boadicea arrived to see the heart wrenchingly tragic loss of the motor boat Janice , working off Dunkirk pier, demolished by a direct hit from a bomb. Her skipper Sub-Lieut. Bell, RNVR, was killed, together with a stoker rating. The QBII managed to pick up three of Janice's crew who were thrown into the water as she went down. In total a lucky 13 soldiers were rescued from Dunkirk thanks to the brave QBII.
She made her way back through the choppy waters avoiding the menacing clusters of aircraft, like birds of prey ready to swoop down and kill. You know as I write this my eyes are filling up, no really - call it pride, sadness, whatever it is, it gets you right here.
Now you can pay your respects to this heroine by supporting her in her dotage as she takes it nice n' easy along the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal three times a day. Don't you think this second warrior queen deserves it? Something to tell your friends and family.
Information
Today the National Waterways Museum operates boat trips aboard the Queen Boadicea along the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal three times a day. QBII is also available for private hire. Contact: 01452 318200.
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