Arlingham Passage over the River Severn

With the fine weather expected to fade away tomorrow, I mentioned to Woodpeckers that I wanted to go to Arlingham, an ancient crossing point or ’passage’ across the River Severn from the east bank to the west bank at Newnham-on-Severn. Luckily she was free today, so she decided to come with me!

The site of the ‘Passage’ is at the apex of a large meander in the river where it turns as it butts up against some hard red rock which stops it from spreading further westwards and into the Forest of Dean. The church of Nenwham-on-Severn is built on the hard rock behind the cliff face.The passages were places where originally it was possible to wade across the water at low tides. At Arlingham the tidal range of the River Severn is huge, probably twenty feet or more. The hard bedrock under the river, a rock type which I think is called Old Red Sandstone, provides a firm footing and it means that downward erosion is harder. 

There are various passages across the River Severn, the  lowest or first being Aust Passage, close to where the original M4 Severn road bridge was built. Its construction lead to the demise of the Aust ferry. I think Arlingham is the next passage upstream, as the river narrows from an estuary to being a more constrained river.

I have previously researched old drove roads of the British Isles and discovered that before bridges the passages and ferries were vital to the movement of animals around the country to provide food to urban areas. The Roman bridge over the Severn at Gloucester would have been vital to local and regional economic development as well as being an important and strategic military position. 

I think that Arlingham had been a crossing allowing large animals to been driven eastwards from the hills of Wales. But probably ferries would have been used at times when the water flow was too deep or fast. The sandbanks seen here are constantly moving. On the shore where I was standing was a warning sign from the coastguard saying that tides are very fast flowing, and there are areas of quicksand to be wary of!