Saturday 15th
June 2019
During my visit into Frampton yesterday, I bought duck and bantam eggs
from an honesty box. We have become well sold on duck eggs since discovering
them back in Birmingham, very creamy eggs, but the price varies greatly. These
eggs were £2 per ½ dozen for the duck eggs and just £1 for the bantams eggs. The
difference in size is comical. We had scrambled duck eggs for breakfast.
Hhmm.
Although the day was windy we decided to move to Sharpness. The
weather doesn’t seem as though it is going to improve and so today seems as good
a day as any and we want to explore around Sharpness before our Severn
Crossing. We left the mooring and headed up the canal until we were clear of moored
boats before winding.
We stopped off at The Black Shed at Slimbridge to top up with diesel
and empty the toilet cassette for which we had to pay £2.50. At Purton we
stopped behind the moored Edward Elgar and filled with water, doing a wash at
the same time.
And then it came on to rain, and boy did it rain. Within a few minutes
I was soaked and even my boots were full of water.
Just after the water point we passed the now redundant Timber Ponds,
now completely filled with reeds. Timber used to be stored in the water here before
being floated and towed up to timber yards in Gloucester. Beyond the ponds we
passed the remains of the Severn Rail Bridge, destroyed in 1960 after two
tankers collided with a central pier.
We moored just before the Old Arm and, once we had tied up, typically,
the rain stopped.
After a cup of tea, we went off exploring, first to the rail bridge
remains. This must have been a colossal structure, although all that now remains
is the stone wall at the end of the embankment and the circular tower that
housed a steam engine and formed the pivot for the swing bridge over the canal.
Originally, the bridge consisted of the swing bridge over the canal and 22 pier
columns over the river. It was 4,162 feet long, 70 feet above high water and
was the lowest crossing point of the River Severn.
In 1960, after being lost in fog and missing the entrance lock to Sharpness
Docks, two 230 ton tankers, the Arkendale H and Wastdale H, belonging to John Harker
Tankers of Knottingley and loaded with fuel oil and petroleum, collided with
one of the supporting columns, exploded, caught fire and brought down two spans
of the bridge. Five of the eight crew on board the tankers died. The bridge was
subsequently demolished in 1967 and the remains of the two tankers can still be
seen in the river at low tide.
We then walked down the Old Arm to the Old Lock. Originally, this was
built to enable vessels from the canal to lock onto the river without passing through
Sharpness Docks. Today, the arm is used as a linear marina, the lock is unused and
is now dammed and the Lock House is the headquarters of the Severn Area Rescue
Association.
At the Old Lock, the tide was ebbing and it was a long way down to the
swirling waters. The views up and down the river and as far as the Severn Road
Bridges, are stunning. It is a wild and dramatic spectacle.
SARA HQ at The Old Lock
We walked up the service road for the Old Lock and unexpectedly came across
the remains of the Training Ship Vindicatrix and a monument to it. Vindicatrix
was a hulk that was used as a Merchant Navy Training Establishment at Sharpness
from 1939, after the training school at Gravesend was evacuated, until 1966
when she was towed away and scrapped. Over 70,000 boys passed through
Vindicatrix, many of whom were lost at sea during the Second World War.
T. S. Vindicatrix
We passed back along the old arm marina heading back to the boat, but
didn’t find the people at all friendly. Even the CRT water point has been disconnected.
Weather: windy and cloudy with spells of heavy rain.
Day Total: 0 locks; 6 miles; 0 Tunnels; 5 Swing Bridge; 0 Lift
Bridges; 0 Boat Lift; engine running hours 3.5
Overall Total: 539 locks; 989 miles; 46 tunnels; 32 Swing Bridges; 5
Lift Bridges; 2 Boat Lifts; engine running hours 631.8hrs
Comments
Post a Comment