Shropshire Severn

Little frog. Safe in our hands? Not really. Photo by Jack Goolden

This week Roger Macfarlane published his next book “Is a River Alive?” In 2008 tiny Ecuador recognized that rivers have a spiritual entity or personhood, capable of being granted rights that are protected by law. They did this in response to the determination of powerful mining companies to exploit Ecuador’s mineral rights reckless of the pollution that would be caused to the country’s rivers. In 2017 New Zealand followed Ecuador in recognizing that, in law, a river has a spiritual and physical entity.

Ecuador enshrined in law the principle that the condition of every river is “an essential element for life, a necessary aspect for the existence of all living things.” We, of course, have not yet afforded our rivers such protection. At the last election the calamitous state of our beloved rivers was a hot political issue. As Macfarlane says “The state of our rivers is a gradual, dreadful calamity.” All the main parties promised great things. It would have been suicide not to. Nothing has happened. It seems that the power and rights of water companies, their shareholders and their CEOs are inviolable.

Here's a memory: driving to a family wedding in 1958 or 9. It is hot. It’s like being in a sealed tin can. My Mum and Dad, with hindsight, have had a row. There’s a leaden silence. The air fizzles. The plastic seat covers are damp under my bare knees. I’m too small to see out of the windows. Starchy un-natural wedding outfits. Suddenly my Dad brakes hard and pulls into a layby. Something bad is going to happen. “Come my dear,” says my Dad, the more polite the greater the anger repressed, “we are going swimming”. We take off all the scratchy wedding clothes, slip down the bank into a cool chalk stream sliding like a clear ruler between the fields. Green margins of reeds and dragonflies to each side. We are suspended above a glistening white pavement of pebbles. Heaven. Afterwards, getting dressed, my mother is giggling at the thought of us all going to a wedding with wet hair and, for her, no make-up. Had we swum in our underwear or did we go sans culottes to the wedding? Could we find that same silver stream today? Well…what do you think?

Walking to school Macfarlane asked his young son whether a river is alive. His son declared “Of course!” From a child’s viewpoint a river is forever full of life and energy and wild creatures living free. We adults surely need to make sure it stays that way.

I have been kayaking on the Severn for ten years. This Spring I’ve been on it a couple of times a week to regain fitness after an illness. It has been extraordinarily dry and the river level has sunk to levels I have never seen before. The challenge paddling “uphill” against the flow has become less a matter of strength than skill, “reading” the water to find enough depth to get my paddle fully in.

The Severn at Edgerley, with the Welsh Hills far behind. Photo by Pen

I decided to see how the river is doing by finding my next islands along a 24 mile stretch of the Shropshire Severn from Edgerley on the Maesbury levels to Frankwell slip in Shrewsbury.

The Severn starts from a spring in the mud of the Welsh Plynlimon hills. It has made its way here through steep rocky high ground into the glacial valley of Newtown and Welshpool. As it reaches England the river makes great bends through the fertile flat lands of North Shropshire. When the river is higher the view from a kayak never seems to change as you turn this way and that below Admiral Rodney’s Pillar on the Breidden Hill. With this low water you are aware only of being boxed in by high green banks with cows occasionally peering down at you. Sometimes they come down to stand knee deep in the slow river.

Sadly, for the first time, I was anxious about camping: how would I keep clean enough with the level of water pollution? Rats: I’ve seen rat prints on the sand at my local slip, would I be vulnerable to Weil’s Disease and would rats try to get into my food supplies or my tent? And people: on sea islands I can be pretty sure that I will not meet any other people. On the river, less so. I had four islands in mind but would they have swans, ducks or geese nesting on them? I wouldn’t camp anywhere where I would risk disturbing them.

It was early evening when Col dropped me off at the Royal Hill pub at Edgerley, a nice pub with a camp site. I wasn’t going to avail myself of either. The river was so low there that there was an “island” right at the pub, an uninviting mud-coloured plinth. It is hard to imagine that fish can thrive in this soup. By the way the right and left bank of a river are defined from the river’s point of view as it flows downstream.

A few kilometres down the remains of the White and Red Abbey are on the river’s right bank with the ruins and moat of Priory of the Grandmontine order. This was a French order of hermetic monks based in Limousin. It was established by a colourful character called Fulk Fitz Warin 111, the owner of nearby Whittington Castle, much given to scrapping and romance.

Nowadays there is a military training base on the river bank and a copse called America. Helicopters train from there. Once, when the river was flooded my friend Duncan and I saw a group practicing a rescue right by the storming water. They were as surprised to see us shooting past as we were them.

A little further down from the Abbeys was my first proposed island, Little Shrawardine Island, next to an ancient Norman Motte and Bailey. This island like the one at Little Shrawadine was almost certainly a medieval man-made “fish island” or “fish weir”.

A traditional Severn fishing trap. Photo by Wikicommons

A fishing weir made of willow would have been on the natural bend of the river and a “Barge gutter” dug for boats to be towed up thus accommodating two of the river’s important commercial functions, transport and fishing. There was often a weir keeper’s cottage close by and a second industry for the inhabitant would be basket making and net building from the willow growing nearby. The main harvest was of eels. Eels were an important part of the rural economy. So much so that fisheries were often included in the Domesday Book.

The characteristic Severn “Trow” could be as much as 60ft long with two masts that could be dropped for bridges. It’s hard to imagine such industry. The men hauling the boats against the flow must have worked very hard. The barge gutters now are very quiet places, a tangle of willow rooves them over. I have seldom seen anyone else in one.

A Severn Trow at Bridgnorth

There are hundreds of these “fish islands” or “bylets” on the once navigable section of the Severn between Stourport and Pool Quay near Welshpool. Most people pass them without realising what they are but once you get your eye in you can spot the old “barge gulleys” and nose your way in. You can also find them on the Ordnance Survey, characteristically slicing across the tops of river bends.

Exploring a gutter at Mytton. Photo by Pen

So this is what I do. The river’s natural course is a shallow bend and on the river’s right bank is a characteristically steep sided gulley. I stay on the river downstream but eddy out at the end of the bend and there, sure enough, is the lower end of the man made “barge gutter”. It’s clear and running well, almost certainly deeper than the main channel. I make my way up easily. I only attempt this when the river’s flow is gentle enough for me to paddle against. I wouldn’t want to be pushed backwards into a brush of willow. A swan looks down at me from her nest midway, scandalised to see me. So I won’t be camping on this island!

I wonder how many eels there are now in the river. How alive is our river? They were over-fished by the nineteenth century but my guess is that they will have recovered well by now. As for fish, for brown trout and salmon, they can still be found in the river. Every Autumn people come to watch them jumping the weir at Shrewsbury, but no doubt there are far less. People fishing along the bank in season generally seem to be going for coarser fare.

The fishing “community” have been very active in seeking to protect the river, speaking out effectively. One fisherman, quoted in The Guardian newspaper this spring said “I am not a scientist, I am just someone who has spent my life on the river, as an angler, a canoeist and a swimmer. I have seen it change for the worse; the river doesn’t clear any more, you cannot see the gravel, there is no weed, and at the near margins the bottom is covered in a horrible, black, smelly silt. These sores are just the latest thing we are seeing, and they are another cause for serious concern.” Phosphate levels have increased by 20% since 2023 and nitrates by 35%. It’s agricultural pollution and sewage spills. (Angling Trust’s 2024 water-quality monitoring report)

Shrewsbury "March for Water". Photo thanks to Guardian

Alison Caffey is a Shropshire hero advocate for the river. She has used her Phd studies to address pollution on the river and is using her research to bring a judicial review against Shropshire council’s decision to grant planning permission to yet another intensive poultry unit, housing 230,000 birds at Felton Butler, north of Shrewsbury.

I have to concur, although the river level is so low I still can’t see the bottom and it’s impossible to judge the depth of the water except by the ripples on the surface. We owe our beautiful river more, we owe our rivers a life.

As I paddle along in the evening light I’m thinking that our strong emotional connection to the rivers in our life must surely be deeply rooted in our beings. After all we can’t live without clean water. I’m imagining prehistory, a neolithic “summer gathering” here on the shores of a great bend in the river. People like us collecting to celebrate and enjoy the summer wealth of the river, camp fires and fish roasting on the pebble beaches.

A fast shallow stretch by Shrawadine brings me sharply back into the present. I was sharing the river with several swans, young males, floating spread across the river. Territorial. Aggressive. Doing my best to be unassertive I get pushed into the overhanging willows. Nearly caught up but then, luckily for me, I was through and in fast smooth green water where the river reflected the emerald of the river banks above luminous green plumes of milfoil weed stretching luxuriant below my boat. This stretch of river felt clean, either because it is cleaner or because faster water is less silty.

My next island is at Montford village and here, to my delight, there is a steep pebble beach leading to a flat platform overhung by willows. No swans nesting and room for my tent for the night. Once the tent is up I realise I can hear children playing quite close by, though separated by the river. Once the children have been called in the sound of the Shrewsbury bypass is louder than expected. But by then I’m not moving. In fact I’m asleep.

Montford Island

It's surprising how much space you take up for an overnight stop

The farm nearest to the island is Weir Farm and the field below it is called The Weir. Montford is listed in the Domesday Book as having a fishery. So my island is definitively a “Fish Island”. Within minutes of pushing my boat back onto the river the next morning I find that the river has disappeared. It has gone from disturbingly low to completely dried up. In fact the river has chosen to head right down the barge gulley. I’m guessing that channel is deeper if narrower. It’s a good thing I brought my old plastic boat rather than the more delicate carbon one.

The dried out river bed, marked Weir on the OS map

I tow the boat some 100 metres over a succession of dried out pools separated by clearly man-made weirs. It’s strange to be able to see the river bed laid bare. I wonder how the frog spawn and fish spawn have fared. The river pebbles are richly decorated by fragments of nineteenth century earthenware, china and bottles. I pick up a green bottle embossed with Venos Lightning Cough Cure. Pity I didn’t have that to hand last winter. The half skeleton of a wooden boat, maybe a Severn Trow, emerges from river sand. I’m back in the water heading for the lower entrance to the barge gulley. I make my way up it but here is another swan on its nest, so back I go and down to Montford Bridge.

When the river is at high flood level the water reaches to 5ft below Montford Bridge arches

I have time to spare, time to waste indeed so I get off above the bridge to see if I can find coffee. The Wingate Arms is a great pub which has never had the popularity its riverside setting deserves. A new family has taken over there this year and I wish them all the best. With a campsite, open boat hire from “Hire a Canoe”, a caravan site and plenty of fishing visitors they should do well. By the way, if you’d like to try a trip on the river you can hire an open boat/Canadian canoe or paddleboard here, load the family and a good picnic basket and make your own way down a very beautiful stretch of the river to Shrewsbury. It’s a great day out.

I had forgotten my water the day before. Left it on the kitchen table. At Hire a Canoe I scrounge a refill and set off again. The island I was making for is only 3km further downstream. I have never seen that island without a resident swan’s nest in May, so I needed time to head further downstream if necessary. As the beach at the western end of the island came into view I was delighted to see it was swan free and moved fast to break out of the flow and land on the beach. The river moves fast round this bend and it would be hard to work your way back up if you missed the beach.

The end of Mytton Island appears, gutter to the left, choked with debri.

Despite changing my site three times I had my tent set up by tea time. No book, no phone playtime because I had to preserve the battery. So what was I to do? Well, paddle my toes in the warm evening river. Watch tadpoles and myriads of tiny slivers of fish zipping in and out of the shallows where their mums and dads can’t catch them and eat them up. My eyes sift through the wealth of earthenware crocks: why does so much china end up in the river, especially at the top end of these man-made islands? Were they building them up against erosion? It can’t have just been a handy dump: the houses are a walk away.

Shropshire may be a sleepy beautific ramble of villages now but no-one should forget it was the cradle of the British industrial revolution. This hamlet provides it in a microcosm. The Severn river carved out the raw materials for this revolution and provided that vital element: connectivity. The river provided water, power and transport. The Severn gave Shropshire its unique industrial edge: a natural environment formed during the Ice Age when the original flow of the river was diverted to form Ironbridge Gorge exposing vital ingredients of limestone, coal, ironstone and clay.

All that needed to be added was the inventiveness of people like John Kay for the Flying Shuttle weaving loom; Hargreaves for the Spinning Jenny, Thomas Newcomen’s steam engine and the entrepreneurial spirit of people like Abraham Darby who first leased his forge in Ironbridge in 1709. If this reminds you of the deadening hand of school history then take a trip to Ironbridge where the thumping vitality of the industrial age comes to life.

Mytton. A microcosm of rural industry. Ordnance Survey

Once again I’m on a fish island listed in the Domesday Book. You can read the OS map like a book if you take the time. And I do. Miller’s Clump, Mytton Mill, Bromleys Forge all speak of the rural industrial past of this tight little bend in the river. This is the story from two kilometre squares: Mytton Mill, on a tributary just above us. A Mill which would typically have paid its rent in eels caught in willow baskets in the mill race. Millers often had basket making as a side shuffle. The Miller’s Clump is directly opposite the island. Did he pollard willows there and harvest the withies for basket and net making?  Bromley’s Forge is next to the coppice. Every agricultural need met. As Barry Trinder says in “The Industrial Archaeology of Shropshire” while the dominant economic activity here has always been agriculture, manufacturing has been a persistent feature of the rural economy. Places like Ironbridge and Coalbrookdale are the big names but little corners like this bend on the Severn are the unsung heroes.

An upended stoneware agricultural pot, dumped here in the river some 200 years ago

I am not a hive of activity. I’m a centre for sloth, sitting on the pebble beach with only my eyes bothering to move. It is intensely quiet. Times like this are precious. Pigeons are gossiping plumply. Across the river the lambs are playing on the stepped bank down to the river, ridiculously pure white on a fiery green ground. The ewes are working purposefully like a row of mowing machines below the hawthorn trees all decked out and stacked heavy with white flowers. I can smell their sweet heaviness across the water.

The hawthorn flowers remind me of the perfect mound of meringues which ginger haired Angela’s Mum used to make for her birthday table along with chocolate eclairs and a pink iced cake with white piping. 70 years on and unforgotten. That was the hot ticket of the winter holidays. Jeannie and I would dry our hair over an open Aga hob and then gallop down the lane to eat ourselves silly in as short a time possible. It was the only day of the year we ever played with Angela, probably mean with jealousy at her mother’s cooking. I’m sorry Angela.

Great clouds of insects hang and turn over the water. Fish jump for them. Less than twenty feet from me a big dog otter is fishing. I will see six otters over the three days I am on the river. His curvy back works up and down the river, water sloshing down from his tufty caramel fur. Does he know I’m there? Does he care? The river is alive, despite our wanton abuse.

Just when I'm getting the hang of this it's time to finish

The next morning is my last day on the river. I pack the boat, take my time over coffee and breakfast, I’m off. I love the way I can put together my little home and then clear all trace of ever having been there.

The Isle loop

The river is now going to carve out a giant ox-bow curve enclosing an estate called The Isle. In a little more than a kilometre I will reach the isthmus which is around 500 metres across. According to Trinder, industrial archaeologist for the county, in 1797 Cole and Mason had a “welsh style” flannel mill here. There were 2 carding engines, 9 jennies, 20 looms and fulling stocks. It was considered to be a great undertaking. Nothing remains of it now except for the entrance and exit of a tunnel across the isthmus that conveyed water to a wheel to provide the power for spinning and fulling. I’m thinking that the mill would have imported raw materials, fleeces from Pool Quay upstream near Welshpool so there would have been one of the many wharves that used to be up and down the river.

Industrial brickwork at one end of the ditch, revealed by the low state of the river

From the river I can find both sides of the tunnel, still dripping water despite the drought, and on the western side there are the remains of some considerable brickwork and a constant  flow of water down into the river. Proof that The Isle is ringed by water and fits my definition of an island. Which is great news because all I have to do now is to sleep on it. I’ve booked me and Col in for a night at the gorgeous, posh b and b on the island! It’ll be my first island with Col. There will be a big hot bath, a bed with clean white sheets all set up to enjoy the view of a lake, books galore and a very nice breakfast. This I need!

Irregular hand wrought iron from the river. Made at Bromleys Forge perhaps?

The Isle section of river is precious, it is untouched. There are no roads, very few footpaths. This is because the land on both sides of the river for 10 miles or so is owned by private estates: the Isle estate, Fitz and Berwick estate. On the inside of most of the river bends a steep escarpment has been carved out that is clothed in great trees, mainly oak with an understorey of hawthorn, rowan and the occasional pine. No-one has ever trodden there. Every tree is clothed in green spring finery and the ground below is cushioned in white garlic flowers. I love to paddle there alone, listening to the birds, either “uphill” against the flow or scooting downhill as I am now.

Today, however, while my mind is floating with a couple of lazy buzzards, on a tight bend I am swept sideways onto a little barrage of rocks. This fast shallows doesn’t exist on the river normally. The barrage is not something I have never seen here before. It’s a good thing I’m not a beginner because something as small as this would tip you in if you leant the wrong way. I’m so shocked I just sit there for a moment, looking at the knuckle bones and bare vertebrae of the river so rudely exposed. Later a farmer explains to me that the farmers “must” be allowed to extract water from the river. They are licensed so to do. I’m not convinced.

Watched by a tricksy little string of Gossander chicks I navigate myself off the rocks and on I go, more careful now to stay in the stream. Despite everything it does look like the birds and beasts are making a good enough life. There are mobs of ducklings on the water: Gossander, Mallard, madly decorative Mandarin ducks as well. Coot and Moorhen police the tangled edges. Less geese than usual, in fact no goslings. Usual number of Swans I would say. Plenty of Herons speak to an abundance of fish perhaps? But they will also take ducklings on those long spear beaks. Is that why most ducklings cling to the tangled overhang of willows? I’m not a birder but any fool knows a Kingfisher when they see one and I’ve seen plenty. The river is alive.

There’s a real spring in my paddle stroke as I tootle my way down to meet Col, friend Catherine and her dog Annie at Poplar Island, as you come in to Shrewsbury. We’re going to have a picnic and a snooze here. It is not an island you could put a tent or even a bivi bag on. It’s a popular party hang out. I want to include it in 77 Islands because it is so historic, so much part of the river’s story.

There’s a bend in the river just as you come into Shrewsbury where, if you lean right back on your deck and lie looking straight upwards your whole vision will be filled with a delight of Sand Martens, in great numbers criss-crossing at dizzying speed. It’s hypnotic. Just before you pass out sit up and watch them popping in and out of their burrows clustered like a high rise walk way at top of the bank.

“My” oak tree is opposite a pebble beach on “Doctor’s Field” where every Shrewsbury kid comes to play at the end of their GCSEs. It’s a place where they can hang out and make out and make as good a job as any teenager of being noisy and naughty. My oak tree makes a great green tent where I do my hanging out. I once saw a great salmon idling below me. I once saw a man, bare naked except for his shoes and pulled up socks, wandering across the beach opposite, oblivious to the world. In flood times the lowest branches of my tent are submerged and I ride high. In drought the curtain is raised a bit and my privacy is a little compromised. But no-one cares to notice a little old gal taking coffee and biscuits in a coolth of greenery.

At Poplar Island on the outskirts of Shrewsbury I pull in to a fisherman’s platform, hitch up my kayak and haul myself up onto a field full of buttercups. Shrewsbury is extraordinarily lucky to have Doctor’s Field and Poplar Island as buffers to building development. They are flood meadows, lightly grazed by a friendly herd of cows, protected and managed for wildlife by the Town Council. It’s absolutely fitting that they should be: Darwin was brought up at The Mount at the top of the bank. This is where he wandered as a child. Everyone knows this and is proud of his connection to Shrewsbury. But Poplar Island and its barge gutter should also remind us of the huge importance of the river to the trade and transport of the town, enclosed as it is in another great bow of the river.

Eighteenth century engraving by Sanders shows Poplar Island clearly with the sails of a barge in the gutter. Other activity on the river: coracles over the fish traps and a barge without sail turning down river below the downriver gutter exit. The spires of Shrewsbury's fine churches and the castle still mesmerise as you float down river into Shrewsbury.

The first time I walked here was twenty years ago and my granddaughter Eve had just moved from her Welsh village school, which had 30 children and 2 teachers, to take up a scholarship place at Shrewsbury High School. It was a big new start and it worked out very well for her. I went exploring her new home town, walking upriver and finding native delicate mauve British Autumn Crocus (actually Colchicum Autumnale) flowering prolifically along the top of a wide flooded ditch. This ditch, which I have paddled up from the upriver end when the river was flooded, is what remains of the barge gutter that created Poplar Island. It was dug in to allow the boat traffic to continue without interfering with the fishery on the shallow bend of the river.

I must have taken this just before I went to sleep. Maybe.

The island is now a haven for wildflowers, smothered today in shining buttercups. Catherine, Col, Annie and I loll out on a picnic blanket. I am very excited to see them and very tired. Did I sleep? Well let’s say I did, just long enough for Poplar Island to take her place in 77 Islands.

Is the river alive? It is, but no thanks to us. It is struggling desperately to stay alive. It deserves better. The filth of the water, the extremes of shallows are very disturbing. Every year comes a week when the truly beautiful deep blue Demoiselle flies float in an iridescent, weightless cloud over the plumes of green water crowfoot here on this bend.

Beautiful Demoiselle fly. Not to be confused with the more common damsel fly. Photo thanks to the Sussex Wildlife Trust

Ted Hughes describes the female as “Hover poised, in her snake skin leotards, her violet dark elegance.” You paddle carefully, awestruck, careful lest you breathe in. The weed, bedecked with white open-faced flowers, is a much-favoured spot to lay their eggs and these are the males waiting for their gold sheened females to be enticed by the prospect of submerging themselves to lay their eggs. This year the weed is carpeted in brown silt and I saw no damsel flies. And that is very disturbing. I hope that I was just too early for them. But the lava stage of dragonflies and damselflies requires several years of clean water. Which it doesn’t seem that they are getting.

Crowsfoot bend a few years ago, with Demoiselles. Worth saving? Photo by Pen.

Beautiful Demoiselle larvae need two years of clean water to metamorphose. "I'm not really a praying man but if you're up there please save us Superman" Homer Simpson.

With four of these historic fish islands slept on at £10 each: Montford, Mytton, The Isle and Poplar Island I feel I have made a good start to 2025. I circumnavigated Little Shrawadine island for a £1 so I will start the season by contributing £41 to Aban to help them continue their great work helping inner city youngsters get outdoors. If you would like to take a look at their work just use the link below. If you would like to donate there’s a button at the top of this page. I would like to thank everyone who donates personally but I can’t. It’s not like a Just Giving page, for example, when I get to hear who has donated. On the plus side, however, all donations go directly to my chosen charity, there’s no percentage taken by the bank. And if you gift aid as well your donation really grows. So! Anyway! Thank you to everyone who supports Aban by sharing this post or donating.

Findings from the river bank tell the story of past lives. The tall bottles were ginger beer from a brewery in Germany. They possibly made their way across the North Sea, maybe to Bristol and then round Lands End and in a smaller boat up the Severn Estuary to be landed on a small wharf at Berwick House. The broken bowl...who broke it and did they get into trouble?

If you would like to paddle the Isle loop from Montford Bridge to Shrewsbury then these are the people to go to. Open Boats, stand up paddleboards hired for the day.

https://hireacanoe.com/

Fantastic b and b with a warm welcome and the best scrambled eggs on this planet

https://the-isle-estate.co.uk/accommodation/