River Avon

“ The name of this town—from the “broad ford” over the river—is by no means its only indebtedness to the Avon, for the highly picturesque situation of Leland’s “clooth-making” centre is entirely the outcome of Nature’s handiwork. Immediately on the north side of the river a hill abruptly rises, and it is on the brow and along the sloping declivity of this eminence that most of the tastefully-designed dwellings have been erected. The deep and hollow valley of the Avon now extends between two ranges, the hills here and there richly wooded to their summits ”

“ It has many noble and interesting buildings, and a lovely and striking countryside is at its very gates, while the river Avon, to which Bristol owes the possibility of its greatness, flows out to sea, amid the most romantic river scenery in England, at Clifton. ”

“ It stands on the banks of the Avon on an embowered point, and separated by adjoining gardens from the suburbs of the town. Its situation is quiet and retired; the river runs murmuring at the foot of the churchyard, and the elms which grow upon its banks droop their branches into its clear bosom. An avenue of limes, the boughs of which are curiously interlaced, so as to form in summer an arched way of foliage, leads up from the gate of the yard to the church-porch. The graves are overgrown with grass ”

“ The bridge, six-arched, with deep buttresses, seemed as old as Avon itself. It is built of the red sandstone so common in the neighborhood; but time has long since mellowed and subdued its color to reflect the landscape’s mood, which just now was sober and even mournful. Rain hung over the Malverns; down on the flat plain, where the river crept into the evening, the poplars were swaying gently ”

“ But no living man or woman approached us. The village was given up to peace or sleep or death.
Returning, we paused on the brow of the slope above Avon for a longer look. At our feet was spread the vale of Evesham; the river, bordered with meadows as green and flat as billiard-tables; the stream of Arrow to northward, which rises in the Lickey Hills, and comes down through Alcester to join the Avon here; the villages of Salford Priors and Salford Abbots; farther to the west, among its apple-trees, the roofs and gables of Salford Nunnery, the village of Harvington. ”

“ THE UPPER OR WARWICKSHIRE AVON. The Watershed of Central England—Naseby—Rugby—The Swift—Lutterworth and Wiclif—Stoneleigh Abbey and Kenilworth Castle—Guy’s Cliff—The Leam—Warwick and its Castle—Stratford-on-Avon and its Shakespeare Associations—Evesham—Pershore—Tewkesbury.
THE Avon is a typical river of the English lowlands, and it is surpassed by few in the quiet beauty of its scenery or in the places of interest on its banks. It rises in the northern part of Northamptonshire, on an elevated plateau, the highest spot on which is nearly 700 feet above sea-level. ”

“ No river of secondary size in England has so many places of distinction upon its banks. Rising at Naseby, skirting Rugby, and washing Leamington, Warwick, and Stratford, is a fine record for the upper part of a single river. This is the group of names with which the world chiefly associates the Avon; but the world knows much less of its lower half, which is far the most naturally beautiful, and has to its credit the more or less ample remains of three great abbeys, Evesham, Pershore, and Tewkesbury. ”

“ Nor is any aspect of a chalk stream perhaps more beautiful than where some swift-gliding current is running a couple of feet over the growing water-weed, all swaying and flickering in green streamers with every motion of the pellucid and wayward current. The Avon, too, is a prolific and notable trout river, where the disciples of the modern cult of the dry-fly leave no half-mile of water going begging for a lessee, and the May-fly here hatches out right up to the river’s source.
But Salisbury is, of course, the place with which the Avon for the best of reasons is chiefly identified ”

“ The river Avon at Rugby is a slow and not very clear stream, in which chub, dace, roach, and other coarse fish are (or were) plentiful enough, together with a fair sprinkling of small jack, but no fish worth sixpence either for sport or food. It is, however, a capital river for bathing, as it has many nice small pools and several good reaches for swimming, all within about a mile of one another, and at an easy twenty minutes' walk from the school This mile of water is rented, or used to be rented, for bathing purposes, by the Trustees of the School, for the boys. ”

“ The Avon finally enters the estuary of the Severn at Avonmouth, though it can hardly be reckoned as a tributary of that river. From Bristol downward the river is one of the most important commercial waterways in England, as giving access to that great port. The Kennet and Avon Canal, between Reading and the Avon, follows the river closely from Bradford down to Bath, where it enters it by a descent of seven locks. The length of the river, excluding minor sinuosities, is about 75 m., the distance from Bradford to Bath being 10 m., thence to Bristol 12 m., and thence to the mouth 8 m. ”

“ From hence I went to Ringwood upon the river Avon, over a deep sandy moor; which has ever been thought the Regnum.Regnum in the Itinerary, and begins the Iter septimum of Antoninus.TAB. XLVI. 2d Vol. It is a large thriving place, full of good new brick houses, seated by the side of a great watery valley, the river dividing itself into several streams, and frequently overflowing large quantities of the meadow: it seems well calculated to have been an old British town: they deal pretty much in leather here, and woollen manufactures of stockings, druggets, narrow cloth. ”

“ But though in the deer park at Stoneleigh its streams really frolic upon gravel and turn corners with a hurried swish almost like a Herefordshire grayling river, it is in later stages drifting idly with a pair of oars on its quiet surface that the Avon commends itself so irresistibly to those—and they are many, nay, almost a multitude—who know it. The wider expanse of water at Guy’s Cliff, the beautiful stretch above which Warwick Castle rises so superbly, are as familiar to almost as large a public as the reaches of the Thames at Windsor. ”

“ The environs of Salisbury are intersected in all directions by the abundant water of Avon or its feeders, and the clear murmuring runnels are heard in its streets. The lofty tapering spire of the glorious cathedral is the landmark of Avon-side for many a mile around, but the river equally forces itself upon the notice of the stranger. There is no cathedral in England better set for a landmark than this, and of none can it be more literally said that distance lends enchantment. ”

“ You now stretch nearer the Somersetshire coast; and after passing that beautiful and much-frequented little watering-place, Weston-supra-mare, clustering on the side of a romantic declivity along shore, the flood-tide reaches you on arriving in the far-famed King-Road at the mouth of the Avon, which, in addition to the natural beauty of the surrounding scenery, generally presents an animating scene of shipping and steamers, lying off till there is sufficient tide up the river. ”

“ Dream (Stratford-on-Avon)
One warm June evening
I sat in the churchyard
Of old Trinity. I sat there for hours
On an ancient stone, forgetting time.
The Avon, as silent as the centuries it had known,
Glided past, carrying me on with its memories.
From the lush meadow across the river came the bleating of lambs,
And from the limes floated the song of blackbirds.
All about the scent of roses hung heavy.
Then, over the roof of Trinity, the moon arose.
Shakespeare saw the Avon, thus, and loved it,—
Winding on in the moonlight.
[Pg 39]
Escape
How simple life can be! ”

“ We have told you all about the beautiful scenery of Clifton, and the Hot Wells at this place, and the fine old rooks. Well, now we took passage in a little steamer, and went down the Avon between these lofty rocks, and had a new and enlarged view of this wondrous formation. The boat was well filled with tourists, as this is a fashionable trip. The Avon for four miles is quite Rhenish in its aspect; and one or two old castled towers on its crags afford a sort of reminiscence of what we lately saw on the river of rivers. ”

“ AVON, AFON (Cym.-Cel.) ,
ABHAIN, ABHUINNE (Gael.) ,
AMNIS (Lat. Sansc. ap.) ,
water, a river; e.g. the Avon, Aven, Aune, Auney, Inney, Ewenny, Aney, Eveny, river names in England, Wales, and Ireland; Avengorm (red river) ; Aven-banna (white river) ; Avenbui (yellow river) ; Avonmore (great river) , in Ireland; the Seine, anc. Seimh-au (smooth river) ; the Mayenne or Meduana (probably the middle river, from Cel. meadhou) . In France there are from this root—the Ain, Avenne, Vilaine, Vienne; the Abona, in Spain. In Scotland: the Almond or Awmon; Devon (deep river) ; Doon (dark river) ”

“ There was, again, much traffic to and from towns situate on the Warwickshire Avon, which enters the Severn at Tewkesbury after passing through Stratford, Evesham, Pershore and other towns. Defoe says of this affluent of the Severn: "The Navigation of this River Avon is an exceeding advantage to all this part of the Country and also to the Commerce of the City of Bristol. For by this River they derive a very great trade for sugar, oil, wine, tobacco, iron, lead, and in a word all heavy goods which are carried by water almost as far as Warwick ”

“ Mighty, rook-haunted elms, which flourish greatly in the chalk valleys, strike here and there a fine contrasting note, with the silvery thread of the river twisting about their feet, and the broad-backed down rising upon either hand and spreading away into solitude. Cobbett in his racy and delightful Rural Rides, pays much{73} attention to this valley of the Upper Avon. As poet and farmer he declares with enthusiasm that no journey ever gave him so much pleasure in his life as one he made along its banks. ”

“ Though the foreground scenery, as the two valleys merge, becomes less striking, the more distant views are always attractive; for the scarp bounding the limestone uplands of the Cotswolds forms a pleasant feature, and the range of the Malverns is beautiful in its outline. At last, just before its confluence with the Severn, the Avon brings us to another interesting town—Tewkesbury, on the left bank of the latter river, and within half a mile of the former one. ”

“ We lingered only to look at the building that in Shakespeare’s time was the old Falcon Inn, and soon were paddling due south from Bidford Bridge. The Avon now runs straight through big flat meadows towards a steep hill-side, with the hamlet of Marcleeve (or Marlcliff) at its foot. This line of hill borders the river on the south for some miles, and is the edge of a plateau which begins the ascent towards the Cotswold Hills. ”

“ A little below the bridge Avon is joined by the Defford (or, as it was once called, Depeford) Brook, its last considerable tributary, which rises on the west of the Lickey Hills; and a little farther on we turn a sharp bend where, above the old willows on our right, a field of rank grass rises steeply to Strensham church and vicarage. Behind the stumpy tower lies Strensham village, not to be seen from the river. ”

“ Luncheon (provisions for which we had taken with us from home yesterday) finished, we started again, walked a little way, till we were overtaken by the men and ponies, and then rode along Avonside, the road winding at the bottom of the glen, which is in part tolerably wide; but narrows as it turns, and winds round towards Inchrory, where it is called Glen Avon. The hills, sloping down to the river side, are beautifully green. ”

“ It is a river of locks and weirs, so to cast its leisurely progress in its teeth coming fresh from the Teme or the Dart or the Itchen would not be fair, as the Avon was harnessed by an enterprising Tudor squire of the Sandys family and made navigable for freight boats between Evesham and the Severn, a wonderful benefit we are told to the people of the Vale if only by introducing them to the use of coal. ”

“ The country becomes more hilly directly we near the clothing district of Wiltshire. For a short space the Avon renders the useful service of a boundary, effectually dividing Wilts and Somerset. The scenery of Chippenham Vale, through which the river flows on to Melksham, Trowbridge, and Bradford—a trio of interesting towns, each watered by the same stream—is extremely beautiful. ”

“ As a dry-fly trouting river it stands perhaps at the actual head of the list, and like the Avon is also a salmon river in its lower reaches, which fall into Southampton Water just to the west of the mouth of the Itchen. Travellers on the main line of the South-Western from London to Exeter must be familiar with its infant efforts if they have any sort of eye for a country. ”

“ They must decide themselves as to which is the real attraction.
There are several other river sources not far from that of Avon—Erme Head, Yealm Head, Plym Head; this cluster of bogs almost rivals the cradle of rivers at Cranmere. The Erme valley and plains are thickly strewn with prehistoric relics and traces of old tin workings; but, well populated as this district must once have been, it is now one of the most lonely and desolate parts of the moorland. ”

“ The district, however, seems to have been by far the most flourishing of any adjoining the New Forest, owing, no doubt, to the immigration which the various creeks invited, and the remains of salterns still show its former prosperity. Next to it came the Valley of the Avon, its mills often rented, in Domesday, by a payment of the eels caught in the river. ”