Avon Ring 1977 - Pse help identify locations

[ribvanwinkle]

Dear All,

This is my first posting so please be gentle with me if I am asking a no-no or in the wrong place.

After many years on the briny, I have been considering returning to the canals. I dug out some old photos of my last canal trip which was around the 'Avon Ring' in September 1977. (It may have a different routing nowadays).

 

We started at Stratford and passed the Edstone viaduct, stopped at the Fleur de Lys (Lowsonford?) and Gas St., Birmingham.

 

Can anyone identify the locations in the following photos ? (The old world pub will probably have been 'upgraded' by now!)

 

Thanks in advance

Bob

 

[Stilllearning]

Welcome to the forum.

I think the lock in the first picture might be Wyre Piddle?

Edited November 25, 2019 by Stilllearning

[john6767]

44 minutes ago, Stilllearning said:

Welcome to the forum.

I think the lock in the first picture might be Wyre Piddle?

I don’t think the lock is Wyre, that's the diamond shaped one I think, so presumably it would have been that shape then as well?

 

The last picture looks like Tewkesbury at the end of the Avon past the lock down on to the Severn.

[doratheexplorer]

Viaduct Aqueduct

 

Just saying.

19 minutes ago, john6767 said:

I don’t think the lock is Wyre, that's the diamond shaped one I think, so presumably it would have been that shape then as well?

 

The last picture looks like Tewkesbury at the end of the Avon past the lock down on to the Severn.

It's similar but would have had to have changed a lot.

 

Top photo looks familiar but I don't recognise the curved lock wall, could it have been changed?

Edited November 25, 2019 by doratheexplorer

[fatmanblue]

I think the lock picture is Pershore.  From memory it was rebuilt at some point to be less 'diamond-shaped'.  The lie of the land and the moored boats look right and the lock is deep.  Wyre is shallow and much more of a diamond.

Last picture, as a pp has noted, looks like the end of the Mill Avon in Tewkesbury.

 

I 'did' the Avon Ring in 1981 - too young to remember most of it though!

[max's son]

I don't think the bottom picture is Tewkesbury

 

[Mike Todd]

3 hours ago, fatmanblue said:

I think the lock picture is Pershore.  From memory it was rebuilt at some point to be less 'diamond-shaped'.  The lie of the land and the moored boats look right and the lock is deep.  Wyre is shallow and much more of a diamond.

Last picture, as a pp has noted, looks like the end of the Mill Avon in Tewkesbury.

 

I 'did' the Avon Ring in 1981 - too young to remember most of it though!

Pershore Lock is now completely straight sided and although the upper lock landing is new its alignment is very different. I would have guessed Wyre although there are now no trees on the far bank at the position which is now a caravan park and small marina so may have been cleared. But boats still moor on the river there.

 

As far as I can tell there are now locks on the Avon (Upper or Lower) - I've checked all of my photos I can find - with a guillotine gate. Incidentally, wondering if it was from somewhere else I checked Nene and Great Ouse but the current EA designs there are significantly different in detail. I am intrigued by the feature immediately to the right of the bottom gate, half in the pic.

 

 

[ribvanwinkle]

Thanks for all your thoughts so far. I can help with Mike's interest in the right of the bottom photo - see below. It has since occurred to me that photo 3 may be to the right of that.

I am confident that the photos are from the (then) Avon Ring because of the various crew members in the photos (unique to that trip). It may be that the NW part of the ring had different options at that time. My 1inch sketch map by Douglas Smith (June 1974) only shows Birmingham to Worcester via T'bigge - and a dotted (under restoration) route via Droitwich. My Nicholson's (1974?) offers only an alternative to rejoin the Severn way north of Stourport.

Regards

Bob

 

[fatmanblue]

Fourth picture - and the one just posted, is of Abbey Mill Tewkesbury.  This is further down the Avon (on the 'Mill Avon') than the Avon lock area max's son posted above.

I'm confident the lock is Pershore - it's not Wyre (and it's not Evesham which is the only other one I can think of on the Avon with any 'diamondness' to it).

 

And yes, third picture is just to the right (east) of the Abbey Mill.

Edited November 25, 2019 by fatmanblue

[Rebel Dog]

Fascinating photos. I don't recognise the top lock shape. I see why Pershore has been mentioned, but the perspective does not look right to me. There are certainly less trees now if it is Pershore. The last picture is surely Tewkesbury.

[ribvanwinkle]

Abbey Mill it is!

https://millsarchive.org/explore/mills/entry/5051/abbey-mill-tewkesbury

I just didn't think to 'google map' below the Severn Junction.

Thanks for that.

 

As far as the lock is concerned, I have 'google mapped' the length of the river and can't spot a lock where the river bends to stbd and there are boats moored ahead. It may have been rebuilt? On this rainy November night, I'll do some more searching.

 

The pub hasn't raised any suggestions so far - Iguess I'll have to visit every one on the route next Spring?

Regards

Bob

[john6767]

19 minutes ago, fatmanblue said:

Fourth picture - and the one just posted, is of Abbey Mill Tewkesbury.  This is further down the Avon (on the 'Mill Avon') than the Avon lock area max's son posted above.

I'm confident the lock is Pershore - it's not Wyre (and it's not Evesham which is the only other one I can think of on the Avon with any 'diamondness' to it).

 

And yes, third picture is just to the right (east) of the Abbey Mill.

When I suggested Tewkesbury past the lock, I was meaning in the down stream direction, by the mill and abbey, shown here

 

[john6767]

As to the lock, if Pershore Lock has been rebuilt since then, then it could well be it.  I must be a Lower Avon lock, and there arn’t that many that have an orientation that could possibly match this.  

[ribvanwinkle]

40 minutes ago, john6767 said:

When I suggested Tewkesbury past the lock, I was meaning in the down stream direction, by the mill and abbey, shown here

Sorry John, I totally missed the nuance - I hadn't even realised the Avon continued as it does.

Regards

Bob

[Rob-M]

51 minutes ago, ribvanwinkle said:

Abbey Mill it is!

https://millsarchive.org/explore/mills/entry/5051/abbey-mill-tewkesbury

I just didn't think to 'google map' below the Severn Junction.

Thanks for that.

 

As far as the lock is concerned, I have 'google mapped' the length of the river and can't spot a lock where the river bends to stbd and there are boats moored ahead. It may have been rebuilt? On this rainy November night, I'll do some more searching.

 

The pub hasn't raised any suggestions so far - Iguess I'll have to visit every one on the route next Spring?

Regards

Bob

The inside of the pub looks like the Fleur De Lys.  I was surprised when I visited there a couple of years ago that they still did pies like they did when I used to go there as a child.

[Dorlan]

The lock is definitely Pershore Lock.

The third and fourth pictures were taken in Victoria Gardens, which is by Abbey Mill.

Edited November 25, 2019 by Dorlan

[nikvah]

6 hours ago, ribvanwinkle said:

Abbey Mill it is!

https://millsarchive.org/explore/mills/entry/5051/abbey-mill-tewkesbury

I just didn't think to 'google map' below the Severn Junction.

Thanks for that.

 

As far as the lock is concerned, I have 'google mapped' the length of the river and can't spot a lock where the river bends to stbd and there are boats moored ahead. It may have been rebuilt? On this rainy November night, I'll do some more searching.

 

The pub hasn't raised any suggestions so far - Iguess I'll have to visit every one on the route next Spring?

Regards

Bob

The navigable river goes upstream ahead and slightly left while the weir stream goes down to the right (as pictured there at Pershore in 1977).

The moored boats are private moorings then The Star and the The Angel moorings. The lock island suffered a major collapse into the weir/hydro-electric stream in 2017 and  had to be rebuilt and replanted as seen in BBC Country File 2018 https://www.dropbox.com/s/cixfchwzjittxd8/HETH2811.mpg?dl=0

[ribvanwinkle]

Thanks again everyone.

I looked into the Pershore changes over the 40+ years and I'd now vote for Pershore but it seems the lock shape from my era had been modified by 2008 when the image below (Youtube: screenshot of time lapse video) was taken. The only other photo evidence I found dates from 2010.

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1929842

 

I'll check out the Fleur de Lys asap

Regards

Bob

 

 

 

[fatmanblue]

I think Pershore lock was originally a diamond shape, although not as extreme as Wyre.  When the navigation was restored, Pershore lock had to be deepened to give clearance under the bridges as Pershore watergate was removed.  The new 'deepened' section was rectangular in shape, hence the staging on the left and the pole on the right to ensure that boats didn't get stuck on the sides as the level dropped.

 

No doubt all of this is detailed in David Burlingham's book on the Lower Avon 'To Maintain and Improve' - I just can't lay my hands on my copy just now.  I would guess that the 'rectangularisation' took place before the 1990s.

 

The Avon Ring must have been quite an adventure in 1977 - the Lower Stratford wasn't in great shape then and the Upper Avon may have been a bit raw.  Pershore is not the only lock on the route to have seen major changes - at Harvington the original 'new' lock was abandoned in 1981 and rebuilt on a different alignment (the original is now a dry dock).

[ribvanwinkle]

17 minutes ago, fatmanblue said:

The Avon Ring must have been quite an adventure in 1977 - the Lower Stratford wasn't in great shape then and the Upper Avon may have been a bit raw.  Pershore is not the only lock on the route to have seen major changes - at Harvington the original 'new' lock was abandoned in 1981 and rebuilt on a different alignment (the original is now a dry dock).

I don't recall too many difficulties but there may have been reasons for that:-

- We were well crewed - 8 in all. And, we were 'Equal Opportunites' - the five women took their turn at all tasks. ( The previous year I crewed for a couple of married couples on the Cheshire Ring - the husbands refused to allow their wives to steer!! I soon sorted that but that is a totally different story)

- Two of us had RN training which had included 'How to use the crew to get your warship off a mud/sand bank' - we did have to use the technique once.

- Ignorance was bliss

 

Thanks again everyone

Bob

[fatmanblue]

If you are thinking of doing the Avon Ring again after 42 years, I would suggest doing it clockwise.  The locks on the Avon are much easier to deal with going downhill.  Not that going uphill is any problem, it just requires diligent ropework.

[ditchcrawler]

17 minutes ago, fatmanblue said:

If you are thinking of doing the Avon Ring again after 42 years, I would suggest doing it clockwise.  The locks on the Avon are much easier to deal with going downhill.  Not that going uphill is any problem, it just requires diligent ropework.

Even with just a reasonable flow I find the avon bit of a slog going uphill in some stretches, much easier going up the Severn with its nice wide deep water

[Rebel Dog]

Whilst it is decades since I frequented pubs in that area, my first reaction was that the pub could be the Fleur de Lys. 

[Rob-M]

My parents moored on the Avon during the 70's, I remember going through a lock with the poles on the side but can't recall which lock. We used to go to Pershore a lot as I recall playing in the drainage channels and going to the swimming pool so could easily be Pershore lock.

[The Dreamer]

On 25/11/2019 at 10:16, Stilllearning said:

I think the lock in the first picture might be Wyre Piddle

Doesn’t look diamond shaped enough.