The picture shows Bridgnorth High Town on my way back from an excellent curry last night.
When I planned this walk I had pencilled in a 9 mile walk to a place called Stanley followed next day by another 9 miles to Stourport. Now I am more confident of my ability I decided to walk 15 miles today so I could reach Bewdley, a town I have wanted to visit for some time, and then to have a day to explore the town and do my washing! I did have the safety net of the Severn Valley Railway, if I was tired I could always hop on a train to Bewdley and then return tomorrow to finish the walk off but such whimpish behaviour was not needed thank goodness.
The pub I stayed in last night in does not do breakfasts so I bought myself some flapjacks to have with my tea as a light breakfast before setting off nice and early. 100 yards down the road I came across a butchers/deli with a queue outside, not an opportunity to miss so joined the queue and bought myself a huge pasty for my lunch. The bacon smelt good so I also became the proud owner of a bacon bap, so much for my light breakfast.
Just outside Bridgnorth is Daniel's Mill, a huge waterwheel which was installed in 1855 on the site of a previous mill. It is quite impressive but of course was not running at 9am in the morning.
The route sticks closely to the river (as does the railway) and passes through the Severn Valley Country Park which according to the guidebook is “Award Winning” so I looked up what award it had won. It is a Green Flag Award but as in 2018 this has been given to over 1800 parks in the UK, hardly likely to make you drive very far to see it. Of course driving there would not be very green.
The area used to have a number of coal mines which loaded the coal onto barges which carried it down river so it would have been a busy place, now it is very tranquil.
The guidebook also said there was a cafe at Hampton Loade station, I climbed up to find it was closed so I sat on a bench and ate my pasty lunch at 10.30 and watched the first train of the day arrive – pulled by a diesel!
Eating lunch early was a good move as at lunchtime I arrived at the Boat Inn at Upper Arley, a beautiful spot with hundreds of sightseers all queuing up for beer and food (picture of the village above). I got myself a couple of beers but the food would have taken hours judging by the number of orders being taken and the small size of the pub.
Between Upper Arley (there does not seem to be a Lower Arley) and Bewdley is an aqueduct (pictured) which is part of a 73 mile water course delivering water by gravity alone (i.e. down hill all the way) from the Elan valley reservoir near Rhayader to Birmingham. If you were to play Pooh sticks it would take two days for your stick to reach Birmingham. To supplement the supply in the 60's Severn Trent built a pumping station and reservoir which extracts water from the river and feeds it into the supply. Coincidently today on the BBC news there was a story of an inshore rescue volunteer who was badly infected during a training session in the Severn, he spent three days in hospital as a result of sewage in the water. I think I will avoid drinking the water next time I go to Brum.
I am in Bewdley in a nice little flat where I am going to stop for two nights so I can explore the town tomorrow, do my washing and give my feet a break after 100 miles of walking. I am now just over half way.
From now on I intend to do less walking each day and spend more time exploring as I am less familiar with the towns and villages.
The first impressions of the town are good, even Tesco Express is in a nice building, so stand by for exciting information about Bewdley in tomorrows blog.