Jottings, Notes, Re-creations and Re-imaginings after reading
Ferries of Gloucestershire by Joan Tucker
There’s nothing like a November fog in Purton,
Down there by the old turnpike road and swing-bridge,
Where the vapours hang over the cut and the river,
And over where the ferry used to be near Tites Point,
A Magwitch – Pip land, water and skyscape –
A desolate part of the Berkeley Estate,
That became a canal-side port with its own customs house –
But now, just an inn, the Berkeley Arms,
Standing in its own gated meadow,
And a footpath,* and old ferry boat landing steps,
To remind us of what used to be.
While over there, across the river,
Sleepy, sequestered Gatcombe:
Its halcyon port-life shipping and fishing days
Cut short by the coming of the South West Railway.
Poaching and the Game Laws in Gloucestershire: Part One of Three
‘We the undersigned, wish to complain about our arrears of payment from the turnpike trustees. We have worked every day without fail when required and have performed our duties with the utmost vigour and deference, but have not been paid for three weeks.
It is hard enough for us to feed and clothe our families when paid. Our savings are meagre. We do not wish to become reliant upon the parish. We just want what is rightfully ours. With respect and expectation of justice and fair play.
The marks of
Thomas and William Malpass, Anthony Kingscote, James Hinder and William Marling.’
*The right of way would have lapsed but for the determination of George Cooke who drove his pony and cart through once a year as his right. He would demand the farmer should open the two gates that had been erected between Tites Point and the slipway to keep in his cattle. This went on for sixty years.
The law, illegal ferrying, watery rights of way, and poaching at Framilode:
29th August I914 Court Case:
James Harris, lock keeper; Frank Wood, trow owner; Frank Broacher had land next to the canal company and put up a fence ‘next to that of the company’. Broacher went to fetch Wood who had been on the beer and who crossed the river onto company land. He abused Harris – then Wood demanded access to the boat through a company gate. On refusal, Broacher smashed the lock with an axe. The lock was broken another 6 times in the next 6 months. Broacher ‘was a known poacher’ and the police hoped the company would prosecute him.
Framilode:
‘It was a day out to come to Framilode,
Back before the Great War and the next one:
Walking, picnicking, boating, regattas, speed boats,
Swing boats and swings, tea gardens,
Courtesy of that old sea dog, Walter Long;
Downstream at Priding:
The Victoria and Temperance Hotel & Tea Gardens,
Then the Darrel Arms, with the ferry over to Rodley Sands,
To idle the minutes with play and to bathe.’
‘George Leach took over about the time of Dunkirk, I think,
And kept the pub and ferry running until the death of the King,
Took the kids and cyclists over and brought ‘em all back
Before the tide came up.
Charged threepence at the most per person,
Even when the coaches of day-trippers and sight-seers
Turned up on the bank, horns honking.’
The Turnpike and the River:
‘In Saul there was Saul Marsh, arable, and Sandfield common field.’
‘Acccess to the passage was obtained through Saul. The milestone set at the corner of the turnpike to Arlingham with the twisty road to Saul had ‘FRAMILODE’ cut into the stone at the base. This indicated a branch from the main turnpike road to Newnham Passage and was part of the system which from Stroud passed through Paganhill, Cainscross, Stonehouse and Whitminster to Framilode.’
Arlingham:
‘When the road, which turned off the main Gloucester to Bristol road called Perry Way was turnpiked through Frampton-on-Severn, then Arlingham and on to the shore by the New Inn, the ferry obviously gained in importance. The final mile to the crossing point was straight and bleak across the exposed wet meadows … Along this road were at least two toll houses and six milestones, the last being next to an outhouse of the inn. The plate was inscribed: “London 115 miles; Gloucester 14”.’
The Law and the Sabbath and the River in the late 17th and early 18th Century:
‘Passenger boats across a ferry shall not ferry passengers, horses or cattle on Sunday’
‘The names of all such owners and occupiers of the several passage boats on the River Severn who do ferry over on the Lord’s Day any passengers, horses or droves of cattle, contrary to Law that they may be punished the same, or do cause them to be convicted before the same Justices of the Peace.’
‘Our lives round here have been blighted for a century. Once you could walk and roam and boat with carefree freedom. Now there’s fences and hedges and walls and gates and padlocks and spring guns and man traps and tolls.
No wonder there was all that trouble at the toll house at Cainscross on the turnpike down to Framilode: riots, assault, refusal to pay tolls and affray.
We have lost the right to roam on land and on water: just look at the places that have names ending in ‘lode’ or ‘lade’ or ‘load’, like Framilode on the Severn or Lechlade on the Thames. These suffixes are supposed to denote crossing places.
But bridges have by paradoxical logic put an end to that hither and thither.
Thank the Lord for the example of Captain Swing in our county, and the Rebecca Riots over the Severn; no wonder there was trouble at Lechlade at Halfpenny Bridge, last year.
The canal hasn’t helped either. Passing trade used to need us on the river by the sandbanks and rocks around near Newnham. The river gave men work and women had food to cook and children had food on the table.
Now it’s the workhouse instead if you don’t look out.
Let me end with a few words from Mr. Blake and Mr. Clare:
I wander through each chartered street
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every man,
In every infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:
How the chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every blackening church appals,
And the hapless soldier’s cry
Runs in blood down palace walls.
But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot’s curse
Blasts the new-born infant’s tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.
“Unbounded freedom ruled the wandering scene
Nor fence of ownership crept in between
To hide the prospect of the following eye
Its only bondage was the circling sky…
Inclosure came in and trampled on the grave
Of labour’s rights and left the poor a slave…”