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The River Severn is the longest river (about 200 miles) in Britain. Its name is derived from the Latin word Sabrina, previously Hafren in Welsh, which means "boundary". Its source is in the Plynlimon Mountains in West Wales and it flows through the West Midlands counties of Shropshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, finally emptying into the Bristol Channel. Along the way, tributaries of the Severn include the Teme, the Avon, and the Stour and it is connected by canal with the rivers Thames, Mersey and Trent.
The River Severn has always been a significant factor in the life of the regions through which it flows. It has assisted and thwarted armies, disrupted life during floods and freezes, been used as a major means of transport--during the 1800's barges could reach as far up the river as Welshpool--and used by industry.
A number of themes have been selected from West Midlands literature.
Prehistorical comments on the Severn.
Out of the great Shropshire plain, south of Ellesmere, rises a fragment of red sandstone which has for the most part been swept away by the ancient Severn Sea.
This fragment must have been composed of harder rock than the rest of the bed, and it stood up above the waves a sheer cliff on one side, sloping rapidly into the water on the other. Now it is, as its name implies, a Ness--in shape a nose--and at the end of last century was clothed with heather and short grass, except only where precipitous, and it rose above the woodland that constituted the Shropshire plain.
Bladys of Stewponey by Sabine Baring-Gould. Chapter 17.
Kinver takes its name from the Great Ridge, Cefn vawr, of sandstone rock, 542 feet high, that rises as a ness above the plain of the Stour. In that remote period, when the Severn straits divided Wales from England, and the salt deposits were laid that supply brine at Droitwich and in the Weaver Valley, then Kinver Edge stood up as a fine bluff above the ruffling sea. At that time also, a singular insulated sandstone rock that projects upwards as an immense tooth near the roots of the headland stood detached in the water, amidst a wreath of foam, and was haunted by seagulls, and its head whitened with their deposits, whilst its crannies served as nesting-places.
Bladys of Stewponey by Sabine Baring-Gould. Chapter 1.
Historical comments on the Severn.
Upton Church was then an Edwardian structure built of sandstone from the red rocks of Stourport, with a tower and tapering spire. It stands, so say the learned, upon the site of a Roman temple, where an image of Diana once rose above the Severn's stream.
Hanley Castle by William Samuel Symonds. Chapter 5.
The Birts who assisted in the Saxon conquest of England were landholders in a land of Birch trees, and land tillers, before they crossed the seas. Their first settlement in this country was on the banks of the Severn, below the site of the ancient town of Theocsbury, at a place called Deorhyst. At Deorhyst, the religion of the Cross succeeded the pagan worship of Woden, the War God, earlier than in many parts of Saxon England, and a priory was founded in Saxon times. Here, on the conversion of the Birts to Christianity, the sacred rite of baptism was performed by immersion in the waters of the Severn, and when they died, our Edwards, or Ealdwulfs, and their Ethelgifas were laid in the grave to the ringing of the passing bell.
Malvern Chase by William Samuel Symonds. Chapter 1.
The Severn and its banks thrived with trade.
The basket-makers were busy by Severn side in the osier holts, wagtails were bobbing on the banks, and fishermen were dragging their nets for the silver salmon or early shad, while boom, boom went the cannon in its work of death and destruction, as all nature was bursting into life.
Hanley Castle by William Samuel Symonds. Chapter 8.
In the days of the first Edward it was a favourite residence of the Red Earl of Gloucester, who married the daughter of that monarch, Joan d'Acre, so called because she was born in Palestine during the siege of Acre. De Clare pulled down the Norman keep and built a strong Edwardian fortress with stone brought down the Severn, large enough to hold a force of a score archers, ten of whom were cross-bow men.
Malvern Chase by William Samuel Symonds. Chapter 4.
The great canal planned and carried out by Telford runs from the Stour at Stewponey, and passes under a low bluff that is dug out into houses still in occupation. This canal follows the river Stour and connects the Severn, where navigable, with the Grand Trunk Canal, that links the Mersey with the Trent, and connects the St George's Channel with the German Ocean. At the Stewponey, it is joined by the Stourbridge canal. This point is accordingly a centre about which much water traffic gathers, and did gather to a far larger extent before the railroads carried away the bulk of the trade from the canals.
Bladys of Stewponey by Sabine Baring-Gould. Chapter 2.
A late boat coming up the Severn from Buildwas next day, and tying up at the bridge about nine in the morning, delayed its unloading of a cargo of pottery to ask first that a message be sent to the sheriff, for they had other cargo aboard, taken up out of a cove near Atcham, which would be very much the sheriff’s business.
Saint Peter’s fair by Ellis Peters. Eve of the fair. Part 4.
The Severn formed a natural defensive line between the English and the Welsh and certain of its meanderings formed defences for towns such as Shrewsbury.
The small town of Upton-on-Severn is situated on the river Severn between Tewkesbury and Worcester. The Romans appear to have chosen it as a site for one of their martial camps, and Roman coins and relics have been found in the field tradition has marked out as "The Camp." In after years the Roman Station became a Saxon ton, or village, and there is the "Saxon’s lode" across the Severn to this day. Uptonbury is now Buryfield.
Hanley Castle by William Samuel Symonds. Chapter 1.
Symon of Worcester turned, walked slowly across the courtyard, made his way to the parapet above the river, and stood long, with bent head, watching the rapid flow of the Severn.
The white ladies of Worcester by Florence Barclay. Chapter 52.
The Severn flowed through the literature as well as the countryside.
There surged up in her heart a rage against Bladys, to whom she attributed his death, like the bore in the Severn--it rolled through her, invading every sense, flushing her every vein.
Bladys of Stewponey by Sabine Baring-Gould. Chapter 24.
"And, in the centuries to come, when all things may be changed in this our land, when we shall long have gone to dust, when our loved cloisters may have crumbled into ruin; still the hills of Malvern will stand, and the silvery Severn flow along the valley; while here, in this very garden--if it be a garden still--the robin will build his nest, and carol his happy song."
The white ladies of Worcester by Florence L. Barclay. Chapter 7.
The wedding was precisely like all other well-arranged weddings. Everything was as it should be. Every one was punctual. Everything went smoothly as Severn in July.
Seven for a secret by Mary Webb. Chapter 25.
The Severn’s length and meandering route ensured that there would be a wide variety of flora and fauna dependent upon it.
Even in the time of Edward the First and his son-in-law Gilbert de Clare, the Red Earl of Gloucester, land which now the farmer’s axe has cleared and converted into pastures was covered with wood, dense thickets and the yellow gorse, the haunts of the wild boar and the wild deer, while the bittern was a common bird in the meres, and the beaver still haunted the Severn at Beverley.
Malvern Chase by William Samuel Symonds. Chapter 2.
With its pleasant surroundings on the borders of a great forest which stretched from Worcester to Gloucester, Hanley became the resort of the wealthier Saxon eorls. The hunting quarters were famous, and there was a good supply of fish from the Severn,--the salmon and shad, the lamprey and lampern, all loved by eorls and ecclesiastics, while the wild woods ever furnished herbs for potting, such as mints and pepperworts, or for surgery, as bloodworts.
Hanley Castle by William Samuel Symonds. Chapter 1.
Buildwas owes nearly all its attraction to the exceeding beauty of its situation--than which, nothing can be more picturesque. It stands upon a small plot of rich meadow land, bounded on one side by an amphitheatre of beautifully-timbered hills, and upon the other, by the Severn, which flows at the base of the fair pastures that used, in older times, to furnish the Abbey cattle with their luxuriant food; but, lovely as the neighbourhood is, to my fancy the ruins themselves awaken more decidedly painful feelings in the mind, than any others I ever visited.
Grammar School boys by E. J. Burbury. Chapter 17.
The crystal purity of a perfect evening at the end of April was settling down over the beautiful valley which lies between Shrewsbury and Ludlow; on the one hand, the Longmynd rolled its great sheets of grouse-moor and scarps of rock up, fold beyond fold; while, on the other, the sharp peak of Caradoc took the evening, and smiled upon his distant brother, the towering Plinlimmon; while Plinlimmon, in the West, with silver infant Severn streaming down his bosom, watched the sinking sun after Caradoc and Longmynd had lost it; and when it sank, blazed out from his summit a signal to his brother watchers, and, wrapping himself in purple robes, slept in majestic peace.
Stretton by Henry Kingsley. Chapter 1.
It had been "a white St. Valentine," and, although the middle of February, the whole country lay deep under snow. The Severn and Avon were still frozen, and not even the robin redbreast had ventured upon a song.
Hanley Castle by William Samuel Symonds. Chapter 8
There are pages on this website devoted to the following writers mentioned above:-
Wild Humphrey Kynaston (1898). Novel.
The Brother Cadfael mysteries centre around Shrewsbury Abbey and the River Severn
Dancing with Sabrina (2002). An account of Bob Bibby's ramble along the River Severn from its source at Plynlimon to its mouth at Bristol.
Sabrina Fludde (2002). Children's book.
Page created 12 November 2002 and last
updated 24 January 2003
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