The Rivers and Streams of EnglandBradley, A. G. (Arthur Granville)
General
The Rivers and Streams of England
Bradley, A. G. (Arthur Granville)
England -- Description and travel; Rivers -- England
river, Bewdley is a place to remember among the Severn towns. Always
celebrated for its beauty of situation, old Leland, brief and curt to
the verge of humour, broke out in its presence into verse:
Deliciis rerum Bellus locus undique floret
Fronde coronatus Viriarae, tempora sylvae.
Here, too, as an occasional alternative to Ludlow, was held the Court of
Wales and the Marches. Of Bewdley Forest nothing is left but some great
oaks scattered over meadow and park land, but that of Wyre, near by,
still rolls back from the Severn, ridge upon ridge of scrub oak
woodland, covering about twenty square miles with dense foliage scarcely
anywhere broken but by the trail of the little streams that prattle down
its narrow glens. There is nothing quite approximating to Wyre Forest
remaining in England--this dense mantle of scrub oak, laid over a large
tract of uninhabited hilly country. In autumn this uniform sea of
russet, splashed about with the dark green of stray yew trees, rolling
over hill and dale for many miles, presents a sight common enough in
some other countries, but quite unfamiliar in English landscape.
Stourport, a little outpost of murky industry, soon follows, with the
tributary of the Stour from the Birmingham country, together with the
canal that in pre-railroad days virtually killed Bewdley. But from here
to Worcester the Severn steals serenely on, through pastoral scenes of
quiet but engaging charm. Hills of moderate height, and muffled betimes
in foliage, trend upon the narrow vale, which is always one long carpet
of meadow, while a weir or two at long intervals now checks any natural
tendency the wide river might have had to retain the livelier habits of
its youth, being now everywhere navigable for boats, barges, or small
steamers. But the Severn, unlike its famous twin the Thames, remains for
all that a lonely river. At certain spots of course, such as Bewdley,
Holt, Fleet, and Worcester, Midland holiday-makers paddle about within
limits, but, fine boating river in a practical sense though it must
everywhere be, in its long solitary journey from point to point the
pleasure-boat is conspicuously absent. Probably the high, bare, grassy
banks which are almost continuous, and must shut out the surrounding
country from any one down on the surface of the stream, has something to
do with this.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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