A huge meander of the River Severn at Newnham

Woodpeckers decided to go camping relatively locally in her new tent. I’m sure she’ll blip about it. I offered to drive her to the campsite situated on the Forest of Dean side of the river Severn just beyond Minsterworth. To get there we had to drive through Gloucester and like the ancients had to cross at the first bridging point on the Severn, the reason why the Romans built a fort there and a subsequent city evolved.

The campsite was lovely being set in an old orchard of a farm near the west bank of the river, a classic site for fruit tree growing over many centuries. After leaving her there to pitch her tent I drove further south in the direction of Chepstow, where the two motorway bridges over the Severn estuary were constructed from the 1960s. At Newnham on Severn I turned off the main road and headed up into the foothills of the Forest of Dean towards Cinderford, driving through a wholly different landscape which has huge ancient woodlands and steep valleys.

My purpose was to find a suitable spot to take a panorama showing the huge meander of the tidal river Severn, with its apex at Newnham on Severn. I’d looked at maps and thought that it must be possible to get such a viewpoint from one of the hill slopes above the village. I did drive a long way around and was surprised by the amount of traffic on the narrow roads. I’d nearly given up finding any views and was taking a road I knew from the signpost would lead steeply downhill to Newnham about a mile below.

I suddenly saw a perfect place to park to look out over fields, and then even better was a footpath sign and a kissing gate. Armed with my camera and a standard zoom lens I went through the gate and was amazed to find this view in front of me, less than four yards from the gate. It was exactly what I had imagined. I’d always expected to return with a tripod and my telephoto lens to record a series of overlapping exposures to create a panorama. I was pleased to find that at 24mm I could just squeeze the whole of the meander into the frame. Today was very hazy as I’d expected so it wasn’t ideal photographic conditions, but I’m quite pleased with the result.

In case you are interested, the buildings of Newnham on Severn are directly in the middle of the frame just this side of the river. It was formed at a crossing point or passage of the river, where a ferry was also introduced, which was recorded in 1238 AD. On the other bank of the river is Arlingham Passage, where a road leads eastwards towards the Cotswold escarpment which is the line of hills on the far horizon. Stroud is about seven miles away in a straight line from Arlingham nestling in a gap in the escarpment where the river Frome cut through the hills in former geological conditions, which is an unusual event for Cotswold rivers. Most of them flow with the prevailing slope of the limestone hills towards the east and London.

On the far bank at the right of the photo is the site of WWT Slimbridge adjacent to the tidal marshes which allow the wonderful array of over wintering birds to find a haven in winter, many coming annually from Greenland, northern Russia and the Scandinavian Arctic area called Lappland.

To the extreme left of the picture but just out of shot is the port of Gloucester, which originally was the destination for sailing ships and smaller trows when navigating the River Severn with their important cargoes. The Gloucester to Sharpness canal built in the 1827 eliminated the dangers of this part of the canal for the vessels, as they could join the canal at the port of Sharpness a couple of miles south of WWT Slimbridge. The city of Cheltenham Spa is also just to the left of the image, but it nestling right at the base the escarpment, as many horse race afficionados will have discovered when going to the famous Cheltenham race course. This whole are is known as the Severn Vale.

It is definitely worth look at the large version to see more  detail. Helena's campsite is just round to the left of the picture, once the river has meandered back again towards Gloucester.

This earlier Blip shows the reverse view from the Cotswold escarpment, and the first Extra shows Newnham on Severn on the far right of the frame.