Arlingham is a village and civil parish in the

Stroud District Stroud District is a district in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, South West England. The district covers many outlying towns and villages. The towns forming the district are Dursley, Minchinhampton, Nailsworth, Painswick, Stonehouse, ...

of Gloucestershire, England. The 2001 Census recorded a parish population of 410, increasing to 459 at the 2011 census (226 males, 233 females with 176 Households). The parish contains the hamlets of Milton End, Overton and

Priding Priding is a hamlet in the civil parish of Arlingham, in the Stroud District, Stroud district, in the county of Gloucestershire, England. References

Stroud District Hamlets in Gloucestershire {{Gloucestershire-geo-stub ...

. The next parish to the east is Fretherne with Saul.

Geography

Arlingham lies at the western end of the horseshoe loop of the River Severn, known as the "Horseshoe Bend", looking across the water to Newnham on Severn and the Forest of Dean. Access to Arlingham is across Fretherne bridge over the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal, or Sandfield Bridge at

Saul Junction Saul is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Fretherne with Saul, in the Stroud district, in the county of Gloucestershire, England. In 1881 the parish had a population of 597. On 24 March 1884 the parish was abolished to for ...

. Having the canal on one side and the River Severn on three sides of the parish and a single lane connecting it to the villages to the East, it has developed a distinct identity. Its rural character is still maintained, having some ten working farms with dairy and beef herds and arable land. Although close to the river, unlike areas upriver of Gloucester, Arlingham does not have a high flood risk. The area has many public footpaths, including a section of the

Severn Way The Severn Way is a waymarked long-distance footpath in the United Kingdom, which follows the course of the River Severn through Mid Wales and western England. According to the Long Distance Walkers Association the Severn Way is . The route ...

. An illustrated map, detailing four circular walks, can be downloaded from the Red Lion Web Site. Further walks, rides, routes and information can be found o
Arlingham Walks and Cycle Rides
Trains to Worcester,

Cheltenham Cheltenham (), also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral s ...

, Gloucester,

Stroud Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021. Below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the Five ...

Swindon Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon un ...

and London call at

Stonehouse railway station Stonehouse railway station is a railway station that serves the town of Stonehouse in Gloucestershire, England. The station is located on the Swindon-Gloucester "Golden Valley" line. History The station was formerly called Stonehouse Burde ...

and trains to Bristol,

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

and Westbury and Gloucester stop at Cam and Dursley railway station.

Architecture

Arlingham is in a

conservation area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...

, and has a large number of historic buildings, many of them listed. The attractive, medieval Church of St Mary the Virgin displays good quality architectural work of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and is an example of the Decorated Gothic style of architecture. It is made of local blue lias stone. The tower was built of squared

oolite Oolite or oölite (''egg stone'') is a sedimentary rock formed from ooids, spherical grains composed of concentric layers. The name derives from the Ancient Greek word for egg (ᾠόν). Strictly, oolites consist of ooids of diameter 0.25–2 ...

Cotswold stone The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jur ...

in 1372. 'Remarkably, evidence is provided by the contract for the building of the church tower. Such medieval contracts are rare and the Arlingham contract, which survived amongst the Berkeley archives, is especially valuable for the evidence it provides about the building process. The contract was drawn up in Latin and was made between the parishioners of whom nineteen are named, including John of Yate, William of Erlyngham, the Vicar whose name was Roger, ‘and all the parishioners of the church of Erlyngham’, on the one part, and the mason who undertook to build the tower on the other. The mason was Nicholas Wyshonger from Gloucester, so that the Arlingham tower was not built by any specialist team of travelling craftsmen but by a local builder. Some work had previously been done on the tower which was already several feet high, for Nicholas Wyshonger agreed to ‘build, construct and finish the belltower of the church of Erlyngham in the same manner as it had been started’. The work was to be finished within three years. The mason was to provide floors within the tower, held up by corbels and a spiral stairway with doors at the top and bottom. The tower was to have a fine window on the west side and four small windows, one on each side at the top stage where the bells would hang. These windows survive and the workmanship can still be admired after six centuries.' The Church still has some of the original stained glass windows dating from the mid-fourteenth century. These are some of the oldest

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

windows in Gloucestershire. In the churchyard there are numerous finely-carved headstones, with beautiful lettering.

Governance

The village falls in the 'Severn'

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected to t ...

. This ward starts in the north east at Moreton Valence then follows the M5 motorway south west to

Slimbridge Slimbridge is a village and civil parish near Dursley in Gloucestershire, England. It is best known as the home of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust's WWT Slimbridge, Slimbridge Reserve which was started by Sir Peter Scott. Canal and Patch Bridg ...

/. The total ward population at the 2011 census was 4,760.

History

Situated in the horseshoe loop of the Severn, Arlingham has much in its favour as a site for settlement, so it is quite possible that dwellings have existed on or near the present site for thousands of years, possibly as far back as the

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...

, and evidence has been found in the area of Bronze Age and Iron Age settlers. Indications of a Roman settlement have been found to the north of Passage Road and Romano-British pottery has been found in the area, including along the river bank at Arlingham Warth, indicating that Arlingham was probably a wetland settlement of Roman Britain, possibly centred around iron workings. Numerous dense concentrations of primitive iron-making

bloomery A bloomery is a type of metallurgical furnace once used widely for smelting iron from its oxides. The bloomery was the earliest form of smelter capable of smelting iron. Bloomeries produce a porous mass of iron and slag called a ''bloom ...

slag are distributed over the arable land south of Passage Pill. "It is very likely that Romano-British farmers organised the building of the first flood banks and drainage ditches or

rhyne A rhyne (Somerset), rhine/rhyne (Gloucestershire), or reen (South Wales) (all pronounced "reen"; from Old English ''ryne'' or Welsh ''rhewyn'' or ''rhewin'' "ditch") is a term used in parts of England and Wales for a drainage ditch, or canal ...

s, to bring more of the marshland into cultivation.". In the 6th century the Western Roman Empire finally collapsed and Arlingham became a

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

village or "ham". and part of the tribal kingdom of Hwicce. According to the ''

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alf ...

'', the kingdom was established in 577 after "Cuthwine and Ceawlin fought against the Britons and killed three Kings, Conmail, Condidan, and Farinmail at the battle at Dyrham; and they captured three of their cities, Gloucester, Cirencester and

". Hwicce included most of Gloucestershire , Worcestershire, Warwickshire,

north of the River Avon, plus small parts of Herefordshire, Shropshire,

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

and north-west Wiltshire. After 628, the kingdom became a sub-kingdom of Mercia. Mercia dominated England south of the

River Humber The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal rivers Ouse and Trent. From there to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between the ...

, as well as Hwicca, Mercia incorporated five of the other six kingdoms (

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

, Essex, Kent,

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

and Wessex). Anglo-Saxon England remained a collection of tribal kingdoms until 927 when it was united as the Kingdom of England by King Æthelstan. 790 saw the first Viking raids and the period from this date until the

Norman conquest of England The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, Duchy of Brittany, Breton, County of Flanders, Flemish, and Kingdom of France, French troops, ...

in 1066 is commonly known as the Viking Age. Historians believe that Vikings sailed up the River Severn and fought against the Anglo-Saxons and that in 894 AD King

Alfred the Great Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bot ...

fought the Vikings in a bloody battle at

Minchinhampton Minchinhampton is an ancient Cotswolds market town in the Stroud District in Gloucestershire, South West England. The town is located on a hilltop, south-east of Stroud. The common offers wide views over the Severn Estuary into Wales and furth ...

, about 10 miles from Arlingham. Fighting could have ranged over a wide area of the

Vale of Berkeley The Vale of Berkeley (sometimes known as Berkeley Vale) is an area in Gloucestershire, England. It lies between the River Severn and the Cotswold Edge, north of Bristol and south of Gloucester. It includes the towns of Berkeley, Thornbury, Cam ...

. In 2008, a wrought iron axe, believed to be Viking, was found in a field at

. After the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror undertook a wholesale redistribution of land from the English to the Norman nobles. His "Great Survey", the '' Domesday Book'' completed at the end of 1086, records Arlingham as "Erlingeham" (meaning 'Homestead of the Eorlingas', the tribe of Eorla) as being "King's land and part of the Manor of Berkely, containing 1400 acres", making Arlingham an

exclave An enclave is a territory (or a small territory apart of a larger one) that is entirely surrounded by the territory of one other state or entity. Enclaves may also exist within territorial waters. ''Enclave'' is sometimes used improperly to deno ...

of the Hundred of Berkeley. In the 12th century the Abbot of St. Augustine's Abbey Bristol (the Abbey later became Bristol Cathedral after the Dissolution of the Monasteries), had manorial land in Arlingham, which included fishing rights in the River Severn. Historic documents show that due to the abundance of fish in the River Severn, such as

sturgeon Sturgeon is the common name for the 27 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae. The earliest sturgeon fossils date to the Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretace ...

, salmon, lamprey and

alosinae The Alosinae, or the shads,Alosinae

or shad, fishing was a vital source of food, employment and trade from medieval times until the 19th century, when construction of navigation weirs, to assist the increasingly large vessels traverse of the River Severn, led to a rapid decline in the fish population. St Augustine's Manor House in Arlingham stood on the site of the present St. Augustine's farmhouse. The earliest record of Arlingham church is in 1146, when the founder, Roger of Berkeley, a member of the Berkeley family and Baron of

Dursley Dursley is a market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in southern Gloucestershire, England, almost equidistant from the cities of Bristol and Gloucester. It is under the northeast flank of Stinchcombe#Stinchcombe Hill, Stinchco ...

gave Arlingham church and its possessions to the Priory of St. Leonard Stanley (a Cell of St, Peter's, Gloucester Abbey, which in 1541 became

Gloucester Cathedral Gloucester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Peter and the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, in Gloucester, England, stands in the north of the city near the River Severn. It originated with the establishment of a minster dedicated to S ...

). His daughter, Alice, married Maurice, son of Robert Fitzharding, who was given the manor of Berkeley by Henry II and became the 1st Lord of Berkeley. "In 1154 the manor of Arlingham was officially allotted to Robert Fitzharding and became known as Arlingham Court. A manor house was built on land opposite the Church, now known as The Grove or Court Sands". The early Berkeley deeds mention Hugh de Wike, in 1190, and his son Peter de Wika or de Wyke in 1220. in 1243 he was granted a lease of land in Berkeley and built the original Wick Court but sold it to the fourth Lord and Earl of Berkeley in the 14th century. "It was the Berkeley's who used their private standing army to strengthen and expand the new river flood banks to gain more land from the river". In 1327 John Berkeley's daughter Margaret, married John atte Yate of Arlingham and Arlingham Court passed into the Yate family. Between 1347 and 1351 was the time of the

Black Death The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...

across Europe. Near Royal Orchard is a field formerly known as "The Pest Leaze" where, according to tradition, a large number of people were buried at the time of the

plague Plague or The Plague may refer to: Agriculture, fauna, and medicine *Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis'' * An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural) * A pandemic caused by such a disease * A swarm of pes ...

. The Dursley Berkeley line ended in an heiress who married Thomas Wykes in the 15th century. The Manor House at Arlingham Court is believed to be substantially re-built in the mid 15th century. On 5 September 1538, following the split with Rome, Thomas Cromwell, minister to

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...

, issued an injunction requiring the details of baptisms, marriages and burials to be kept in a Parish register. In 1539 the oldest baptism was registered in Arlingham church. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, in 1542 the Abbey's manor and land in Arlingham were passed to the Dean and Chapter of the Bristol Cathedral, Around 1566 Slowwe Manor and estate was purchased by Thomas Hodges, acquiring manorial dues in the process, "Slo" or "Sloo" House as it was originally called, was originally the property of Thomas Pavy and had several owners before being purchased by Thomas Hodges, thence descended down to John Sayer, the latter states in his book that he believes, therefore, that much of the house probably originates from the 15th century, though it was substantially rebuilt in the 18th century and further extended in the 19th century. In the 17th century Arlingham experienced some severe flooding. 1607 saw The Great Flood of Arlingham. This was part of the Bristol Channel floods, 1607. Some scientists believe this may have been a

storm surge A storm surge, storm flood, tidal surge, or storm tide is a coastal flood or tsunami-like phenomenon of rising water commonly associated with low-pressure weather systems, such as cyclones. It is measured as the rise in water level above the n ...

, a combination of meteorological extremes and a high tide. However, Professor Simon Haslett of Bath Spa University and Australian geologist Ted Bryant of the University of Wollongong, published a research paper in 2002, in which they argue that there is evidence to suggest this may have been caused by a tsunami. As a result of this flooding, the current of the River Severn changed. The riverbanks were strengthened and the area now known as "The Warth" was enclosed and recovered from the river. Modern sources give the date of this flood as 1607, whereas older sources, give the date as 1606. This is due to the use of Old Style and New Style dates. Older sources use the Julian calendar, where the new year starts on Lady Day, 25 March, whereas more modern sources use the Gregorian calendar, with the new year starting January 1. In some sources both dates are given i.e. 1606/1607. In 1650; Wick Court was rebuilt in its present form. Also in the 17th century, the wrought iron turret clock, with its relatively rare single hand, was added to the Church, In 1717 six bells were cast by Abraham Rudhall and installed in the Church. In 1758, John Yate, the last male, Yate family heir died. His mother died in 1777 and the Court Estate passed to her great-niece Lady Dorothy Mill, who then sold Wick Court. On her death the Court Estate passed to her daughter Sophia Del Cannes, who lived in Naples and heavily mortgaged the estate which fell into a state of disrepair. In 1780 the large barn at Slowwepool farm was commissioned and built by the Hodges family. About 1781, "The Dutch Oak Pews were fitted in St Mary's church. They were originally high-backed panelled pews with doors, but these were cut down and made into open pews sometime in the last century. It is known that some of the old pews were fitted with iron hooks or stanchions to hold muskets – which is a throwback from when the old Court opposite the church was occupied by a garrison in the Civil War". In 1801, Parliament passed the "Land

Enclosure Act The Inclosure Acts, which use an archaic spelling of the word now usually spelt "enclosure", cover enclosure of open fields and common land in England and Wales, creating legal property rights to land previously held in common. Between 1604 and 1 ...

", which enabled any village, where three-quarters of the landowners agreed, to enclose its land. Arlingham took advantage of this and became tithe free as land was allotted to the vicar in lieu of tithes. In the last part of the 19th century the Holford family of

Westonbirt House Westonbirt House is a country house in Gloucestershire, England, about southwest of the town of Tetbury. It belonged to the Holford family from 1665 until 1926. The first house on the site was an Elizabethan manor house. The Holfords r ...

purchased the Court estate and in 1882 Arlingham Court, empty for many years and in ruins, was demolished. In 1856 Slowwe House descended down through the Hodges family to the Reverend John Sayer, Vicar of Arlingham when he married Elizabeth Hodges, and subsequently to their son, also John Sayer. When the latter died in 1886, Slowwe House passed into the ownership of Mr Carter The passing of the Census Act 1800 enabled the first Census of England, Scotland and Wales to be undertaken. The census was carried out in 1801 and every ten years thereafter. Little remains of the 1801 - 1821 censuses but, fortunately, much of the census information for Arlingham in 1831 has survived and shows the Arlingham population as 744, 393 male and 351 female, with 143 families, living in 103 houses. 85 families were mainly employed in Agriculture, 28 trade, manufacture and handicrafts and 30 families classified as "other". 5 houses in the village are shown as uninhabitable and one house was being built. Further analysis of the 1831 census shows that 66% of the working male population over 20 were labourers or servants, 16% were "middling sorts", defined as "small farmers, masters and skilled workers with no employees", 13% were employers, mostly large farmers, and 8% were "others". Information from the 1841 - 1911 censuses is accessible (census data is only publicly available after 100 years) and has been transcribed in a form that can be freely searched on line, though some of the information from the older censuses is barely legible and in the transcription process many errors occurred. Photocopies of Arlingham Parish Registers are also available. The 1871 census shows Arlingham as having a population of 697. At that time the village had a shop, blacksmith, butcher, tailor, dressmaker, shoemaker,school mistress, engine fitter, barge owner, two public houses (The Red Lion and The New Inn), as well mariners, watermen, bricklayers, masons, carpenters, 12 farmers. and many farm and domestic workers. Until 1934 Arlingham was in the "Wheatenhurst" (otherwise known as

Whitminster __NOTOC__ Whitminster is a village and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, and on the A38 trunk road approximately south of Gloucester and north-west of Stroud. The parish population at the 2011 census was 881. The hamlet of Wheatenhur ...

) registration district, after which it became part of the

Gloucester Rural District Gloucester was, from 1894 to 1974, a rural district in the administrative county of Gloucestershire, England. The district did not include the City of Gloucester, which was a separate county borough. In 1935, Gloucester RD was more than doubl ...

. In Kelly's Directory of Gloucestershire (1897), the listing for Arlingham states "George Lindsay Holford C.I.E. of Weston Birt House, is Lord of the manor and chief landowner". Arlingham is on the course of a

Roman road Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...

, the Margary 543 which is said to extend from a river crossing of the Severn at Arlingham through

Frampton on Severn Frampton on Severn is a village and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. The population is 1,432. Geography The village is approximately south of Gloucester, at . It lies on the east bank of the River Severn, and on the west bank of the ...

, Eastington, Frocester and Kingscote to join the

Fosse Way The Fosse Way was a Roman road built in Britain during the first and second centuries AD that linked Isca Dumnoniorum (Exeter) in the southwest and Lindum Colonia (Lincoln) to the northeast, via Lindinis (Ilchester), Aquae Sulis ( Bath), Corini ...

It is believed that the remains of this can be found in Silver Street and that the straightness of Passage Road was due not to Roman ancestry but to the former existence of flanking

rope walk A ropewalk is a long straight narrow lane, or a covered pathway, where long strands of material are laid before being twisted into rope. Due to the length of some ropewalks, workers may use bicycles to get from one end to the other. Many ropew ...

. The Roman road led to the old Ford, which crossed the Severn to Newnham. The position of this ford can still be seen at low tide, when the water ripples over the shallow bed of rock, a few hundred yards from Newnham, just below Broadoak. This ford was still passable until around 1802, when the river changed channel, shifted and took away the sand bank that gave access to the fordable, though dangerous, rocky causeway."The last recorded party to use this ford was led by John Smith of Littledean, when he took over the tenancy of Overton Farm, Arlingham and drove his entire stock of cattle, sheep, wagons, goods and family, without loss over Newnam Passage. His descendants still farm at Arlingham today". The first ferry from Arlingham to Newnham was recorded in 1238 and the British Universal Trade Directory of 1792 noted that Newnham provided "a very safe ferry over the Severn". Horses and coaches were carried in the 18th century and animals were carried in an ox or cattle boat and crossed the river to the railway station in Newham from when it opened in 1852 until 1914; the Ferry was also very important to the people of Arlingham because they could cross the river to trade, catch a train to South Wales or Gloucester or travel onwards. Bakers in Newnham crossed the river daily to trade, bringing back cream and farm produce. The

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...

continued in use until after the Second World War but gradually use of the ferry decreased and lack of maintenance of landing stages on either side meant traversing mud - one of the duties of the ferryman had become carrying people across the mud. In 1913 Arthur Cooke wrote in The Forest of Dean "At low tide a small portion only of the journey will be made by boat - the remaining area of tenacious mud-flats stretching from the farther shore must needs be traversed in The Ferryman's strong arms'. In the year 2000 Arlingham and Newnham on Severn celebrated the millennium by once again opening the ferry to link the two communities. The Assault Squadron Royal Marines 539 kindly provided two hovercraft. Three thousand people were ferried across to enjoy festivities in Arlingham and Newnham on 10 and 11 June 2000. As Britain's longest navigable river, the Severn could once be sailed for 160 miles from the sea to near Welshpool in Wales. Up until the 19th century the River Severn was a vital commercial thoroughfare providing a transport system for food, minerals, timber and other cash crops produced in the region to reach their markets in the outside world. Flat bottomed sailing barges known as Severn

trows A trow was a type of cargo boat found in the past on the rivers Severn and Wye in Great Britain and used to transport goods. Features The mast could be taken down so that the trow could go under bridges, such as the bridge at Worcester and ...

used to navigate the river as far as Gloucester but they could only do that on the high spring tides. According to Brian Waters in his book "The Severn Tide" "The barges often had to wait high and dry on the Arlingham shore for high water. The bargees came ashore and got drunk. In this state of maudlin inebriety, with money spent and thoughts of hungry families at home, they robbed Arlingham's fields and gardens of fruit and vegetables". The Gloucester and Sharpness Canal was conceived in 1798 and completed in 1827, to make Gloucester accessible at all times and England's most inland port. In 1810 the Severn Tunnel Company secured an Act of Parliament to build a tunnel under the river at Arlingham Passage. The Severn tunnel (1810) plan was for a tramroad tunnel beneath the River Severn. The tunnel was to cross the river at Arlingham Passage, at a location between Newnham on Severn and Bullo Pill on the west bank, to the promontory near Arlingham on the east Work was started but problems with flooding meant the project had to be abandoned. There were various schemes for a bridge, most recently in 1950, but environmental and financial constraints meant none of these came to fruition. During the first decade of the 21st century, a group of villagers published three books of village life from bygone years to the present day. * * * A previous Ham class minesweeper was named after the village - .

References

External links