Salt's Mill

It doesn’t take a genius to see how Saltaire got its name. Nestling on a hill above the River Aire is the village built by Titus Salt, a Victorian entrepreneur with a big social conscience. A textile mill owner in Bradford, West Yorkshire, he saw at first hand the overcrowding and frightful living conditions endured by his workers, and decided that radical action was needed. His solution was to build an entirely new community – houses, shops, a school, a church, and a textile mill – alongside the Leeds and Liverpool canal. This, he knew, would kill two birds with one stone; the standard of living enjoyed by his employees would be transformed, while the canal would provide cheap and efficient transport of goods to and from the mill.

Walking around Saltaire today, you have to be impressed by the solidity of his achievement. The rows of neat terraced houses, each with their own front and back garden, are impeccably maintained; an estate agent’s dream. There’s a handful of shops, defying the recession, although you’ll be disappointed if you want a drink. The community has remained true to Titus’s ground rules, and he was adamant that there should be no pub.



What has changed is the mill. With the end of textile production, the mill closed in 1986 and looked destined to become an enormous white elephant, too precious to pull down, but of no practical use whatsoever. It was bought by Jonathan Silver, a friend of David Hockney, who had a vision. What better place to display the art of Bradford’s – and probably England’s - greatest living artist. Not only did the mill have space in abundance, but its ambience was in perfect accord with Hockney’s spirit: unassuming, down to earth, and Yorkshire through and through.

Today the mill houses one of the largest collections of Hockney’s art – drawings, oil paintings, lithographs, etchings, photomontage. What is most surprising is the way that it’s displayed. Pictures hang from every available space around the walls, but this is no typical gallery. Around the room are tables stacked with art books, notelets, postcards, musical instruments; this is a cross between a gallery, a showroom and a shop. At first glance, the art appears incidental, furnishings added as an afterthought to fill the walls. That’s how our greatest living artist has decided his work should be displayed.

The top floor must not be overlooked. Here there are special exhibitions. When we visited, it featured three 27-foot long pictures of a road in Hockney’s Bridlington, depicting the changing seasons, from winter to summer. Also, along with other works – portraits and landscapes – were displayed pictures created on the artist’s latest tool, his iphone and ipad.



A year ago , an exhibtion of Hockney’s work was held at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, featuring his paintings of the Yorkshire landscape. It was a sell out, with crowds queuing to get in. Here, admission is free, and you’ll find no more than a handful of visitors.

Take the train to Saltaire. Visit the Hockney galleries, buy a postcard, and sample the mill’s cafe. But, before you leave, take the canal path to Saltaire Village and see for yourself that other great work of art, the bricks and mortar of Titus Salt.

The wayward bus

I don’t want to flog John Steinbeck incessantly but, having written about his travel books,  I wanted to try his fiction; preferably something easy, nothing too heavy going or wrathful. So I turned to The Wayward Bus. I liked the title, with its hint of troubled travelling. And it reminded me of my first tentative attempt at writing a blog, The girl on the 227 bus. (That’s enough references to my other writings – I won’t mention them again; promise).

This is a story of a beaten up bus, its passengers and driver, and their short but ill-fated journey. It’s a study in character, but Steinbeck draws the reader in, so you start to take sides, to develop likes and dislikes – just as in real life. There’s Alice, Juan Chicoy’s wife, crass and foul tempered, as worn out as the bus itself. Kit the apprentice mechanic, nicknamed for his acne, longing to be known by his real name; he could hardly be more different. Waiting for the bus is Mr Pritchard, a business man, out of his depth when not surrounded by his corporate cronies, the antithesis of Steinbeck himself. Norma the skivvy spends her days in phantasy, dreaming of Clark Gable, until warm hearted Camille, the stripper, introduces her to the ways of the world.

The Wayward Bus was written more than sixty years ago, and I wondered at the outset how it would stand up today. How much has changed along the back roads of America? My experience of the United States is limited to tourist trips, clattering along on Amtrak and riding the occasional bus, driving faltering rental cars from Super 8 to Motel 6. So I’m not the best judge. But obviously there’s been progress of sorts. I’ve never seen a bus as battered as Juan’s. The diners along the highway are all polished aluminium and paragons of hygiene, even though the calorific content hasn’t changed much. Maybe the scruffy, down at heel joints are still there, hidden in the quarters of town where nervous tourists never tread. Perhaps I’ve just looked in the wrong places.

What hasn’t changed is human nature. Alice choking back the rage in her throat because she knows what it can lead to. Well, who hasn’t been there? Pritchard, secure only in the cosy folds of the like minded; exactly the criticism levelled at politicians today, certainly on this side of the Atlantic.
This book has been compared to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and comparisons with The Prologue are obvious; a parade of characters revealing their inner selves as they set off on a journey. But that’s where the comparison ends. With Steinbeck, the pen pictures are there, but the characters are developed through the unravelling of the drama. And drama there is, with the swollen river threatening destruction to the bridge, the coach and its passengers

Above all, this is a book about emotions – anger, resentment, frustration, lust, amusement and hope. If the bashed up bus is wayward, then more so the characters. By the end, some of them have gone right off the rails.

Next time you take a bus, you’ll look askance at your fellow passengers. Behind those impassive faces, who knows what they’re really thinking?

The Arctic Corsair

The city of Hull stands on the Humber estuary, in a forgotten corner of England; even its full name is largely forgotten, Kingston-upon-Hull. To all intents and purposes, it’s off the beaten track. Tentacles of motorways approach it from the west, and a magnificent suspension bridge spans the river, but they are largely empty of traffic. It was built as a port, and successively became a centre for whaling and then deep sea trawling but, when the bottom fell out of the fishing business, prosperity was succeeded by decline.

Yet Hull has the essential ingredient for an attractive city, its river. The yawning expanse of the Humber isn’t so much a river as an estuary, fed by the Ouse and Trent rivers, and emptying into the North Sea. It’s grey and bleak, with flat featureless banks, and brushed by an east wind that howls in from the sea. But where there were once docks, there’s now a marina, with yellow brick walkways and triple swags of chain link fencing bordering the water’s edge. Packed like sardines, an inevitable collection of yachts and cruisers jostle for position, the skyline punctuated by their matchstick masts.
Beyond the marina, the River Hull bisects the city. Here, blackened plank boardwalks edge the water where a smattering of working boats replace the pleasure craft. Moored alongside renovated warehouses is a jewel in the tourism crown, the Arctic Corsair.



The Arctic Corsair is a deep sea trawler. Designed to handle the harsh conditions of the Icelandic waters, she has literally taken a battering. During 1970s, British and Icelandic fishing boats came to blows over the right to fish in the North Atlantic. An Icelandic boat tried repeatedly to cut the Arctic Corsair’s nets, there was a collision, and the Corsair was holed below the waterline. She survived to tell the tale, but didn’t survive subsequent cutbacks in the fishing industry, and is now reincarnated as a museum ship.

Wandering around the ship, below decks, everything seems quite cosy. There are quarters for the officers and crew, with ridge sided tables to keep your dinner off the floor in rough weather, and a neat little galley. But deep in the hold, reality strikes home. Here, in literally freezing conditions, mountains of fish were sorted ready for despatch on reaching land. Hauling in the catch must have been difficult enough, but the bone chilling work of sorting all those fish meant there was no respite when the fish were on board.

Times change. Hull remains as a port, though not for fishing, and there have been stop go initiatives to regenerate the city. At night, the city closes early. Expect to eat in a pub after 8 o’clock and you’ll go hungry. But the teenage kids know where to go. Teetering along on high heels, with no coat – or very little else for that matter – they’re oblivious to the biting cold. Maybe it’s something in the blood, an inheritance from all those generations of whalers and trawlermen.

Visiting Wakefield's daughter

The Hepworth Art Gallery or, The Hepworth as it likes to be known, is the saving grace of Wakefield – or so the local council hopes. Certainly it has a lot going for it. Built slap bang next to the River Calder, this concentration of grey rectangular blocks contains a fine collection of contemporary art. At its heart is Barbara Hepworth, Wakefield’s favourite daughter, with a display of working models donated by her family, showing how she went about her work.

The galleries are dominated by sculpture including work by another local, Henry Moore, who came from just down the road in Castleford.



There’s also a handful of paintings, and temporary exhibitions although – with our usual sense of timing – we arrived in between exhibitions, so one of the galleries was closed. When you’ve had enough of art, you can gaze past the sculpture to the Calder, or eat well in the cafe.



Altogether, this is a lovely gallery, big enough to hold your attention, but not so large as to bring on culture fatigue.

As to whether it will revive Wakefield’s fortunes is another matter. Its past prosperity is reflected in the town’s classical buildings, now empty or neglected, but biding their time, awaiting renewal. There’s been spasmodic investment, in an effort to get things going, pockets of smartness amidst the pound shops and bookmakers . But the locals are not impressed. ‘Visitors just come to the Hepworth and then leave, without spending money,’ complained a lady in the sandwich shop. ‘The council has spent thousands on a new fountain, but put up the business rates so that no one can afford the rent.’ By the look of the empty shops, she could well be right.

But we did our bit, and it was an experience. We stayed the night, in a cheap hotel near the station and, in the evening, ate in its restaurant. The hotel’s reception area was like an oversize minicab office, and there the Iranian proprietor surveyed his domain. At check out, I mentioned a mix up with our order in the restaurant which, I thought, was due to the waiters’ limited English. ‘Peasants,’ he said dismissively. ‘Four weeks ago, they were in Italy, working in the fields. Now they are working in the restaurant!’ Then he grinned and broke into a laugh, amused at my credulity in believing his explanation.

Wakefield, a city of contrasts; it’s well worth a visit. Barbara Hepworth will lift your spirits and, if the sad surroundings weigh you down, just turn your back on the city and watch the river flow.

Pottering around in Stoke-on-Trent

Next time you’re driving up the M6 motorway to the north of England, turn off at Junction 15 for a detour into Stoke-on-Trent. That’s not something you’ll often hear said. Stoke epitomises everything that’s bad about the economic recession. Unemployment at 20%, a down at heel shopping centre where no one can afford to shop, and poverty that grinds and crushes the spirit. It does have a premier league football team, but they’ve a reputation for kicking the opposition and getting beaten by teams with quick skilful players.

In Longton, on the periphery of the city, is the Gladstone Pottery Museum, and it’s quite unique. It’s a collection of giant size bottle ovens and workshops where - at its peak in the 1850s – 41 adults and 26 children turned out pots of every description, shape and size. (Potteries were classed as workshops rather than factories, so the limitations on child labour, imposed by the Factories Acts of the 1830s, didn’t apply). This was no top of the range pottery. Forget the glamorous names of Wedgwood, Aynsley, Spode, Portmeirion; Gladstone stood for everyday, common or garden ceramics, made from local clay.

When the industry declined in the 1960s, with production moving to the Far East, modest Gladstone suffered as much as the big boys. The factory closed in 1970, and was about to be demolished when a local businessman, Derek Johnson, rode to the rescue and turned it over to a preservation trust.



Walking around the cobbled courtyard today, you can step inside the enormous coal fired kilns, explore the workshops showing the various methods of production, and watch demonstrations by real live potters. You can also have a go at decorating a pot or making a bone china flower. What really struck me was the water driven machinery, clattering and clanking like something out of a Heath Robinson sketchbook – but fully functioning today.



In the heyday of production, working conditions were atrocious. It was a payments by results business, so broken pots meant no pay, even if the breakages were someone else’s fault. Hazards abounded. Workers in the kilns could expect to be dead by the age of forty, and lead poisoning was common. But jobs were coveted, and there was always a waiting list of applicants to replace the dead.
You can easily spend a couple of hours here, longer if you want to get your hands dirty, and there’s a modest little cafe serving tinned soup and ham sandwiches – just the sort of unpretentious food you’d expect at a working museum. When we visited, on a cold March day, the museum was almost deserted. That’s a shame. The museum deserves to be visited and, goodness knows, Stoke needs all the success it can get.

A tale of two cathedrals

In the Midlands of England stand Coventry and Lichfield cathedrals, one to the north, and the other to the south, of Birmingham. On the face of it, they’re as different as chalk from cheese. But they have one thing in common. Both have been subject to devastating attacks.



Coventry’s history is renowned. On 14 November 1940 much of the city was destroyed by Luftwaffe bombers, and the cathedral burned to the ground. After the war, the cathedral was rebuilt on adjacent ground, with the remaining walls of the wreckage preserved as a memorial. Lichfield’s history, on the other hand, is less well known. It was never destroyed, but severely damaged, almost exactly three hundred years previously. During the English Civil War, having no castle or city walls, Lichfield’s cathedral became the focal point of defence. Possession of the building swung to and fro between the two sides. It was besieged three times between 1643 and 1646; first by the Roundheads, then by the Cavalierss, and again by Roundheads. Neither side can escape blame for the ensuing destruction.

To say that Coventry is the more impressive sight is putting it mildly. The shell of the old cathedral, pierced by tracery lined windows, and complete with steeple topped tower adjoins the glass fronted porch of the new. Beyond the porch, the nave extends in a zigzag of sandstone, punctuated by honeycombed columns that light the interior space. Within the cathedral, glazed iridescent colour sparkles in sunlight.


At the far end, Christ in Glory surveys the scene from his seat in heaven, a brooding tapestry the size of an upturned tennis court. This is a scene to take your breath away.



On the wall hangs a bell, a gift from Germany presented on the fiftieth anniversary of the bombing. On it is inscribed the words PEACE – FRIEDE which, together with reconciliation, is the spirit in which the cathedral was built.

Over at Lichfield, three hunded years previously, the legacy of war had to be addressed. The stained glass windows had been smashed, and the roof stripped of lead. Cannon balls had been fired at the building (well, you could hardly miss!), and the central spire destroyed. Statues and monuments had also been destroyed. Not even the vicars’ communal boghouse had escaped the carnage. Rebuilding began in earnest in the 1660s. The cathedral was reroofed, the spire rebuilt, and the glass replaced. One hopes that the vicars got a new boghouse. But the walls were still defaced by carvings and Puritan inspired whitewash covered the wall paintings.

What we see today is a product of subsequent restoration, particuarly from the nineteenth century when Sir Gilbert Scott got his hands on it. With more money than taste, the Victorians went overboard, cramming the west front with a crowd of coiffed and bearded characters, memorably described by one writer as an advertisement for a hairdressers. Inside, a flourish of fussy detail adorns the choir. The nave has got off more lightly and, if a visitor were to whizz in from the fourteenth century, he would immediately recognise the simply lined Gothic pillars and arches.



All things considered, comparing the two cathedrals, Coventry – scene of the most shocking drama – has seen the more drastic restoration. As a tourist attraction and an architectural masterpiece it wins hands down, and you have to admire the way that it bears no grudges. Lichfield is the portly and badly dressed relation. It has its treasures, a collection of Anglo Saxon manuscripts displayed in the Chapter House but - when we visited – the Chapter House was inexplicably closed. Knowing Lichfield’s history, perhaps cavalier treatment of intruders was to be expected.

A short walk around a long bend

The River Severn may be the longest in England, and renowned for its seasonal bore, but it’s in no hurry to get to the sea. Sulking towards the estuary, it describes a loop the shape of a rhinoceros’ head. At the extremity of the loop sits the village of Arlingham, and its focal point is The Red Lion. There have never been lions in England, let alone red ones, but pub names are as much about myth as memory, and both are pretty hazy in this particular case.

A map on the pub’s wall points you in the direction of the river. The dead straight Passage Road is the most direct route, a strip of tarmac bounded on each side by grassy swathes. At intervals along the road, someone has gone to the trouble of displaying flimsy notices, ‘No parking. This is not common land.’ The road is deserted, no hint of infringement, but on bore days every vantage point is packed for watching the tidal surge.

Across the river, the village of Newnham on Severn perches on brick red cliffs. To the left, hints of its former status can be seen in the crumbling stone of the wharf. In 1171 Henry II sailed from here to invade Ireland, with a force of 400 ships and 5000 men, or so the story goes. Prosperity peaked in the eighteenth century, but trade declined with the coming of the railway, and the opening of the Gloucester to Sharpness canal spelt the end of its days as a port.



Turning south to walk along the embankment, the path follows the bend of the river. The Severn drifts its course past banks of pristine sand. The bluish water mirrors the changing mood of the sky, sun streaked cotton wool clouds succeeding duvets of blue grey. Skeletal pylons double their length in the shining water. At a sharp turn in the river, distinctive bands – variegated shades of blue – mark its changing depth.



Casual strollers and purposeful long distance walkers share the path, the Severn Way, a full 330 kilometres from Plynlimon in Wales to the sea. A pair of serious walkers approach, fleeced and hooded against the flurries of snow, prodding their way rhythmically with aluminium walking poles. ‘You’ll get wet,’ says a plump lady cheerfully with a glint in her eye. If there’s one thing that long distance walkers love it’s a bit of weather.

An abrupt turn from the river takes us back towards Arlingham. At West End Farm, shaggy coated cows stare ruminatively in our direction, oblivious of the farm’s dark past. In 1873 Amelia Phipps was conducting a flirtatious friendship with Charles Butt, a man known for his jealousy and violence. At a dance he had given her two black eyes for dancing with other men. When a local farmer, Henry Goddard, invited her to attend Gloucester Cheese Fair she accepted, refusing outright to go with Butt. This, for Butt, was the final straw. He shot Amelia in the head, and she died within a few minutes. Butt stole a boat, and fled across the Severn to the Forest of Dean, but was captured at Abergavenny and subsequently hanged at Gloucester gaol.

Today there are no signs of violence along the road to the village. We pass the church of St Mary the Virgin, looking little changed since it was built in the fourteenth century. A jumble of pettifogging announcements on the notice board, concerning electoral rolls and maintenance of graveyard monuments hints at the parishioners’ priorities. Thoughts of murder and graveyards cast a shadow over the end of our walk. I look forward to a sunny day when we can explore the Severn again.

A bumpy ride with John Steinbeck

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about John Steinbeck’s account of his foray into the Soviet Union, in A Russian Journal. Having seen what he thought of the USSR, I wondered what he would make of his homeland. So I turned to Travels with Charley.

After spending ten years living in Europe, Steinbeck returned to the United States and, in an effort to re-connect with the land and its people, set off on a three months road trip in a state of the art campervan, accompanied by his French poodle, Charley. Starting in New York, he travels to Seattle, then down to California and home via Texas and New Orleans.

The result is an uneven book. By the half way point in the text he has reached no further than Chicago. Then follows a rush to the west, reflections on the California of his youth, and finally his thoughts about Texas and racial segregation in the deep South. Descriptions of scenery is sparse to say the least. He marvels at the richness of Wisconsin and, in the failing light of evening, sees the Bad Lands of North Dakota as the Good Lands. But red tape bars him from Niagara and he hardly gets to see Yellowstone. Charley is spooked by the roadside bears and he beats a rapid retreat.

As Steinbeck discovers, travelling in a campervan is a solitary experience. You only get to meet people when you come to a halt. So, although he has his encounters – with truckers, mobile home dwellers, Canuk potato pickers – for much of the time he has only himself, and the irrepressible Charley, for company. Not that this can prevent his descriptive genius from shining through. He ‘whitened his sepulchre’ to attend a church service led by a hell and brimstone preacher, gets into a tangle with customs officials when attempting to enter Canada, and brushes with a monosyllabic state trooper in Maine.

Usually he reserves judgement on the people he meets, but his patience is tested to the limit by his experience of racial hatred in New Orleans; first the taxi driver who blames everything on the Jews for stirring things up, and the women who line up to hurl abuse at the children arriving for school. Finally he loses his cool with a man to whom he has given a lift, and he unceremoniously kicks him out of his van. Steinbeck has reached the end of his tether, and he is glad to head for home.

In the course of his travels, Steinbeck gets to reflect on the experiencing of visiting places. What one person will see from one perspective, another person will see quite differently. As for revisiting your past, you can experience it only through the spectrum of memory. In travelling with Steinbeck, we get to see the country through his eyes. What we get is hardly a comprehensive guide, but there’s rarely a dull moment.

A Norman castle

Deep in the heart of Miserden Park is a Norman castle. It is a motte and bailey, a massive mound of turf and soil, originally accompanied by a courtyard and surrounding ditch. Surmounting the motte was a shell keep, a stone wall inside of which there would have been wooden buildings. Today, there’s little to see for walkers in the estate; just the mound, now camouflaged by the vegetation which all but hides it from view.

Why would anyone want to build a castle here, in the middle of nowhere? Flowing past the motte is an apology for a river, the Frome; once a moat for the castle. Follow the river valley to the north and you come to another Norman site, Brimpsfield Castle, now nothing more than a tumbledown mound. Brimpsfield leads to a road, the Ermin Way, one of the great Roman roads still in use today, linking Gloucester with Cirencester. Trace the river southwards and you come to the Stroud valley, another of nature’s routes through the Cotswolds. What is now nothing more than a twisting track through the trees was once a vital north south route which the Normans needed to make secure; and security meant a castle.

That was the case with Brimpsfield. Miserden is different. The earliest mention of it is in 1146. This was a time variously described as civil war or merely as anarchy. On the death of Henry I, his relatives – daughter, Matilda, and nephew Stephen, fought for the English throne. Stephen grabbed the throne, but Matilda mounted an invasion, prompted by a rebellion in South West England. It was a chaotic period. Chroniclers said that ‘Christ and his saints were asleep.’

The castle was built by Robert Musard. In times of insecurity, the best insurance policy was to build a castle; so so that’s what Robert did. In the end, it didn’t do him any good. He backed Matilda, was killed in the fighting, and his castle was seized by Matilda’s half brother, Philip of Gloucester.

Miserden has escaped the heritage industry, Most people who walk their dogs through the estate are probably oblivious of its existence. Maybe that’s a good thing. A few cut out cardboard soldiers and a souvenir shop would do nothing for the estate’s unspoilt tranquillity, but it’s a shame that the motte is so neglected. The firs that cling to the mound could be cleared, exposing the motte to view, and maybe an explanatory plaque could be installed. It’s the least that could be done for the memory of Robert Musard.

Travels with Steinbeck

Ever since being forced at school to read The Grapes of Wrath, I vowed never to read John Steinbeck again; not unless I wanted to be really depressed. But the other day I was looking for a travel book to read. The bookshop had its ‘hilarious’ self-satisfied accounts of house moving to Tuscany, and superficial jaunts of the sort that would make Wilfred Thesiger turn in his grave. But I was looking for something different.

 

I then came across A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck. It was certainly different. Just as the Iron Curtain was falling across Eastern Europe, Steinbeck travelled through the Soviet Union, accompanied by a war photojournalist, Robert Capa. They visited Moscow, Stalingrad, the Ukraine and Georgia, observing the lives of ordinary men and women. Frustrations abound. Aeroplanes fail to arrive or are hopelessly late, people who promise to meet them fail to turn up, there are barriers of language and the inevitable bureaucracy. At the same time, they are treated with extraordinary generosity wherever they go.

 

Steinbeck and Capa rile each other, and lose their tempers with the unfortunate translator who is assigned to accompany them. They complain about the sheer exhaustion of eating, drinking and travelling to excess. Their journey is set against the background of devastation caused by war, and there are poignant moments. In Stalingrad a child is seen visiting his father ever day – at the cemetery. A shell shocked girl emerges from a hole in the ground that she has made her home.

 

Inevitably, Steinbeck’s compassion for the people shines through at every turn, as does his sense of humour. His car is falling to bits, but it is a superb water heater. Orders are orders and must be obeyed; it is easier to change a sentry than to change the sentry’s orders. Meanwhile, Capa’s photographs capture the lives of the people, harvesting, dancing, wrestling, queuing, and hanging washing amidst the war torn rubble.

 

This is more than a travel book. It is an insight into a past world, and into the mind of an exceptional writer.

The road to Lydney Dock

Like a jagged tooth in a cavernous mouth, Lydney Dock juts out into the River Severn, defying both the currents that sweep the estuary and the march of time.

 

In the early nineteenth century, the grandly named Severn and Wye Valley Railway and Canal Company built a horse drawn tramway and canal basin for transporting coal and iron to wharves at Lydney. Mooring was needed for the ships that were to export the goods, and so the dock was built. At first, Lydney moved with the times. The tramway was converted to a railway, broad gauge and then standard gauge, but competition arrived in the shape of the Severn Railway Bridge, and rival docks across the estuary at Sharpness. Closure of the local coal mines followed and, although business at the dock limped on in one form or another, the port finally closed in 1976. Or so it seemed at the time. The patient has now been revived, if not to its former glory. Within the last ten years, the port has been re-opened as a yachting marina.

 

A prominent feature of the dock is its oil lamp, complete with lamp lighter’s ladder. Originally the lamp was extinguished at midnight but, after two people had fallen into the river and drowned, it was agreed that it should remain lit throughout the night. A poignant reminder of even greater tragedy is a giant boulder positioned on the dock. It is a memorial to the victims of an accident in 1960 when a pair of oil barges hit a pier of the Severn Railway Bridge, bringing down two of the girders.

 

I visited the dock yesterday. It was a bright sunny day, but haze misted the horizon, masking the distant road bridge. Sharpness Docks and a decommissioned power plant were visible across the estuary, and around the foot of the dock the ebb tide had revealed banks of rippling sand. Two boys were chasing each other around the edge of the canal basin, stumbling perilously close to the edge. A warning notice, demanding that children should be supervised by an adult, was studiously (or perhaps un-studiously) ignored by their parents. Eventually the boys skipped away to play elsewhere. For today, another tragedy had been avoided.

The canal that's going nowhere

The Coombe Hill Canal in Gloucestershire is unique. It has not attracted the attentions of a preservation society. Canal preservation is now big business, attracting regional development grants, and significant expenditure by local councils. Whether the cost is justified is debateable, but it’s easy to oversimplify the issue. The long term benefits of canal restoration are impossible to quantify, and enthusiasts would point to the many hours spent by volunteers in fund raising and working on the canal.

In Gloucestershire, the Stroudwater Navigation is being dredged, with its crumbling locks and bridges rebuilt; where sections of the canal are missing, there are plans to reinstate the waterway, even where there is the slight problem of a motorway that cuts across the route. The adjoining Thames and Severn Canal is getting similar treatment, with the eventual aim of using these canals to link the rivers Thames and Severn. Over the border, there is an ambitious plan to link Gloucester with Hereford by restoring the Hereford and Worcester Canal, at present no more than a short stretch of water. Meanwhile, The Gloucester and Sharpness is an example of what a canal can look like when it has never been allowed to fall into ruin.

The Coombe Hill canal is another matter. Built originally to carry coal from the Severn to Cheltenham, it never actually reached the town, and had to rely on horse and cart for the final few miles. It became something of a white elephant, with the lease being passed from one canal company to another and when, in 1876, the one and only lock was damaged by flooding, it was effectively abandoned. This tale of woe would not it itself be a good enough reason for it to escape restoration today. But the surrounding meadows are a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and have been purchased by the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. So the canal is preserved as a wildlife habitat. Where you might expect to see a towpath, there is a very muddy track, the footbridge has left to its own devices, and the wharf is a makeshift car park for nature lovers.



The canal gets its fair share of visitors – dog walkers and families with young children. But while other canals attract joggers, cyclists and anglers, the more typical visitor to Coombe Hill is a solemn and solitary birdwatcher, dressed in camouflage green and armed with serious looking rubber coated binoculars or a camera with an alarmingly long lens. Canal walkers are usually friendly types, who will say hello and maybe tell you something about the ducks that are fussing around the vegetation, but serious birdwatchers have bigger fish to fry, or rather birds to spot. Eye contact with other humans is to be avoided, a distraction from the business in hand.

I really like Coombe Hill, for its windswept meadows, and the sense that nature has been allowed space to get on with what it knows best. Occasionally I’m rewarded by seeing a bird that I recognise; yesterday a pair of Whooper Swans cruised the lake before winging majestically into the distance. Canal restoration has its place, but I hope that it never extends its reach to Coombe Hill.