Motor cruisers and narrowboats head up and downriver, the latter entering and leaving the inland waterways network at Worcester, Droitwich, Stourport on Severn and Tewkesbury. The Severn was once busy with commerce, with sailing barges known as Severn trows that ventured upriver as far as Welshpool, carrying grain. Today, most of the sparse river traffic is leisure related. Occasionally England’s largest hotel boat, the Edward Elgar, moors outside the cathedral with the call of peregrines in the air. The crew dismantle the wheelhouse to allow the 22-passenger vessel to squeeze under an arch of Worcester Bridge on its six-night cruise of the Severn. In the 1980s, Worcester had ‘river-shuffle’ boat trips with jazz music, dancing and a bar, but, now, sadly, there is just one 12-seater trip boat, albeit a new, rather fancy one.
At 19th-century Diglis Lock, there is a new fish pass, allowing migrating fish to bypass the weir. The aim is to restore the population of a rare species, twaite shad. Visit on certain days and you can peer through an underwater window as fish of various kinds – and occasionally otters – energetically swim up the concrete structure.
A five-minute walk from the riverside cathedral is The Commandery, a rambling building that became the headquarters of the Royalists during the final battle of the English Civil War, which took place on September 3, 1651. Understandably, niche history is not everyone’s cup of tea. On the morning I visited, two children were in tears, adamant they didn’t want to be there. There is extensive information about Parliamentarians and Royalists and battle movements on the day, including towing of a floating pontoon bridge for nine miles upriver. There are props to try on and a heavy 5m pike to lift. Later, sitting in the pretty canal-side gardens of the cafe, the nippers were happy with cake and fizzy drinks, laughing at photos of themselves dressed as roundheads and cavaliers.
Source link : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/england/worcestershire/why-theres-a-lot-more-to-worcester-than-sauce/
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Publish date : 2023-08-05 03:00:00
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