Have had a ten-day break based near Worcester, hence the break in service from the Views of the Humber Estuary theme, so will try a run of daily short blogs remembering my stay. The ‘cottage’ is actually in the village of Hallow two miles north of Worcester but the footpath beside the River Severn can be walked into the centre of Worcester in an hour. A lane from the ‘cottage’ leads down to the River Severn with the Camp House pub on the river-bank, this an old and interesting building with no mod-cons and with geese, peacocks, ducks and the occasional swan as entertainment. Given reasonable weather most customers sit outside, although their numbers have for the last year+ been small.
A few hundred yards upstrem and just visible from this point is an island in the River with an angled weir between the island and the bank on the east side and a lock built into the narrower channel on the west side of the island (see photo above). This lock would have carried commercial traffic up and down the navigable River back in the day but now mostly pleasure craft, narrow-boats and others. This is the first lock downstream of Stourport upon Severn, the next downstream being Diglis lock on the south side of Worcester.
Visited Stourport upon Severn, again, weather was good this time. A fascinating place with a canal basin and a complicated set of narrow canal locks, this being at the confluence of the navigable River Stour and the River Severn and a hub for regional canals and navigable rivers. Beside all this canal stuff and associated historic canal buildings is an ‘all year round’ funfair, like a mini Hull Fair, and then a park, playing fields and riverside walk. It has everything for all ages.