The Purton Hulks, Gloucestershire. November 2009

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Cake!

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After this narrow strip of land between the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal and the Severn estuary had threatened to give way, the canal company used old boats to strengthen the bank. Several dozen old wooden, metal and concrete craft were beached here over a 50 year period.

Courtesy of Wikipedia, a little bit of history:
In 1909, following a collapse in the bank of the river, the Canal Companies Chief Engineer Mr A. J. Cullis called for old vessels to be run aground along the bank of the Severn, near Purton, to create a makeshift tidal erosion barrier to reinforce the narrow strip of land between the river and canal.[15] Barges, trows and schooners were "hulked" at high tide, and have since filled with silt. More boats have been added, including the schooner "Katherine Ellen" which was impounded in 1921 for running guns to the IRA, the Kennet Canal barge "Harriett", and Ferrous Concrete Barges built in World War II.

You can see them on Google maps here (you can also see the location of the old Severn bridge railway):
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=Purton,+Berkeley,+Gloucestershire,+United+Kingdom&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=14.014358,46.494141&ie=UTF8&cd=1&geocode=FTRtFQMd957a_w&split=0&hq=&hnear=Purton,+Berkeley,+Gloucestershire,+United+Kingdom&ll=51.733301,-2.458277&spn=0.014326,0.045404&t=h&z=15

More information on this location here:
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloucester_and_Sharpness_Canal"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloucester_and_Sharpness_Canal[/ame]

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Demolished in 1970 after suffering fatal damage during a shipping accident a decade earlier this is what remains of the Severn Railway bridge (the circular tower on the right housed a steam engine to operate a swing bridge allowing tall ships to pass on the canal):
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The bridge previous to the disaster:
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A very interesting area, well worth a visit.
Thanks for looking.
 
Last edited:
Barges

There is a collection of FCB.s just off the Manchester Ship canal in cheshire, i covered them last year and this year.
 
Thats it piss me off by showing photo's of them. I've been hopeing to get down there for a while. Some good photo's there. :)
 
That’s a great looking place to have a half day walking around, some nice pictures there too.
 
very nice photos. I read somewhere that the folk on the Welsh side of the river used to walk across the rail bridge on a Sunday for a drink as Wales was dry on Sunday but Gloucestershire was far more civilised from that point of view.
 
very nice photos. I read somewhere that the folk on the Welsh side of the river used to walk across the rail bridge on a Sunday for a drink as Wales was dry on Sunday but Gloucestershire was far more civilised from that point of view.

Not here they didn't. They may have done further up the river like in the border counties up by Shropshire but they'd have to walk through 12 miles of Gloucestershire to reach the bridge.

I'm sure people did use the bridge as a footbridge though.
 
Thanks all! Always good to get a bit of positive feedback.

You'll see the weather was on my side that day, well worth a trip this place. :)
 

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