River Severn

We left the pretty River Avon at Tewkesbury Lock and steered south on the wide River Severn.  Upper Lode Lock is an enormous lock sited at the limit of the high spring tides.  The lockie had a sheet of instructions for our approach to Gloucester Lock and lowered them down to us in a bucket.   

Entering Upper Lode Lock.   This photo was taken on the return journey and the watermark indicates the level of  the river on the other side  - only a few feet difference

Gloucester Dock is a vast expanse of water with plenty of moorings.  I'm not sure why we thought the jetty outside a wine bar, on a Saturday night, was a good idea.   Large restored warehouses line the dock but they are no longer used for storage, many are converted to apartments and a designer outlet ensures a steady flow of pedestrians through the area.  The city is also busy and its cathedral is magnificent.    

Gloucester Dock  You can just see our bow and front doors in line with the Cathedral Tower.

 Our Nicholsons guide shows the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal has numerous swing bridges.  Luckily they are all manned and swing open on our approach.   As the wide canal took us south we caught glimpses of the Severn Estuary to the west.  After Purton we are a lot closer; the canal is on an embankment running parallel to the estuary.  We moored up at Sharpness in a very quiet location with a panoramic view of the river. 

 I took a walk through the "Purton Hulks", redundant barges which were beached on the estuary banks to protect the canal embankment from erosion.  The majority of the boats were wooden and have disintegrated over the years or disappeared in the prolific reed beds. 

The view from the canal with a Purton Hulk in the foreground.

Out in the estuary a haunting sight is revealed at low tide.   Two wrecked barges have remained on the sands since 1960 when they missed the entrance to Sharpness Lock in the fog.  After hitting the railway bridge that spanned the estuary there was an explosion and both boats were engulfed by fire.  There is a memorial stone for the crew members who died in the disaster and an information board describing the event.  The elegant railway bridge had been damaged and was dismantled leaving the two wrecks to be washed over by the tide.  

The wrecks of the two barges are only revealed at low tide.  

On our return journey we stopped near Saul marina and were surprised to see a familiar boat, Audacious, which used to berth in Viking Marina.   By coincidence 2 other boats from Viking, Martini and Sara, were on permanent moorings on the canal.  

The flow of the River Severn was against us as we sailed north to Upton-on-Severn which is a charming little town.   An unusual church tower with a copper cupola dominated our view as we approached the town.   From the roadside we can see the tower is also unusual because it no longer has a church.  The rest of the building has been demolished and the land is now a public garden.

Upton-on-Severn's unusual church tower

Continuing north we stopped briefly at Worcester and then carried on to the entrance of the Droitwich Canal.  This little canal was closed in 1939 and only reopened in 2011 after a huge restoration.  Before and after photographs are displayed on information boards along the canal to show the amount of work involved.  The narrow canal twists and turns and at times we felt as if we were sailing through a channel in a reed bed.  On reaching Droitwich Basin we were pleased to see plenty of space on the new floating pontoons.  A well kept park surrounded the basin and provided a pleasant route into town.   We stopped for the weekend and enjoyed watching Le Tour de France cyclists on familiar roads in Yorkshire. 

Our journey from Tewkesbury to Sharpness and back up to Droitwich