Gloucester Waterways Museum
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2.6  Linking the Midlands to the Sea

Map of the River Severn & Associated Canals
     A wall-mounted map illustrates places along the River Severn and connecting canals. For centuries the river was Britain’s greatest inland transport route, linking the Midlands to the port of Bristol, and traffic increased as new canals were built to join the river. The Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal, opened in 1772, linked the growing industrial area of the Black Country to the river at Stourport. The Stroudwater and Thames & Severn Canals (1779 & 1789) opened an inland waterway route between the Severn and London. The Herefordshire & Gloucestershire Canal (opened in stages from 1795) served a mainly rural area. The Worcester & Birmingham Canal (1815) gave a direct route between the Severn and Birmingham.
     The increase in traffic on the river led to the construction of what was originally know as the Gloucester & Berkeley Canal although it was actually built to an entrance on the Severn at Sharpness. This bypassed the narrow winding stretch of river south of Gloucester and was big enough to take the largest sea-going ships of the early nineteenth century. The opening of the canal in 1827 enabled Gloucester to develop as an inland port, well placed to serve the growing industrial towns of the Midlands. As the size of ships in world trade increased during the nineteenth century, a large new dock at Sharpness was opened in 1874.
     Traffic on the river north of Gloucester could be delayed by shallows during dry periods, and the threat of competition from the new railways led to the construction of locks in the 1840s and further improvements in later years. These works allowed the river to remain a major trade route until the middle of the twentieth century, but then there was a rapid decline due largely to additional competition from road traffic. Coaster traffic on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal effectively died out in the 1980s, but Sharpness remains a working port.

Framilode Crockery
     Below the map of the River Severn, a display case contains two items from a set of crockery carrying the name Framilode Friendly Society of Watermen. Framilode is where the Stroudwater Canal joined the River Severn, and members of the Society were evidently residents of local villages who worked on sailing vessels trading around the ports of the Severn estuary, particularly carrying coal and stone. In the nineteenth century, the Society met in the upper floor of a warehouse beside Framilode Basin, which is presumably where the crockery was used.

Models of Vessels Using the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal
     A nearby display case contains models of craft seen on the canal in the 1930s, made by Tom Chandler. At the back are the passenger steamers Wave and Lapwing, the coaster Pansy and the tug Stanegarth. In the front are a steam tug towing a timber lighter and the steam tugs Hazel, Speedwell and Mayflower. The tugs are painted in the colours of the Sharpness Docks & Gloucester & Birmingham Navigation Co who owned the canal.

Ship's Bells
     The bell carrying the name Leitrim came from an Irish Channel packet steamer that was converted to become a pneumatic grain elevator at Sharpness. This could suck grain out of a ship's hold and blow it into a warehouse, which considerably reduced the time it took to discharge a cargo compared with the earlier practice of dockers filling sacks that were lifted ashore by crane.
     The lower bell is said to have come from one of the lighters in use on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal, but more likely it was removed from an old sailing vessel when it had its rig cut down to become a lighter.

Severn & Canal Carrying
     This display features some of the vessels and firms involved in carrying on the River Severn. A collection of trade cards show how members of the Danks family of Stourport were involved in various partnerships in the nineteenth century, and they amalgamated with others to form the Severn & Canal Carrying Company based in Gloucester, who were the principal carriers in the twentieth century. There were also many private owners whose boats helped to carry imports to the Midlands and then returned with coal for local consumption.
     To the right is a fine model of the motor barge Severn Merchant, one of several built in the 1930s by Charles Hill & Sons of Bristol for the Severn & Canal Carrying Co. These barges picked up imports at Avonmouth and other Bristol Channel ports and carried them up to Worcester and Stourport for delivery by road around the Midlands.

Severn Waterway Video
     On the other side of the gallery, an excellent 30 minute film made in 1962 features loaded dumb barges being towed by a tug on the waterway route from Avonmouth to Worcester shortly before the traffic ended in the 1960s. Interesting interviews are interspersed with scenes of cargo handling and vessel movements, including a fine record of the manoeuvre needed outside Sharpness entrance to swing a tow of barges around to stem the last of the flood tide prior to turning into the entrance at high water.
     On the floor nearby are two of the ropes used for towing barges behind a tug.

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