A walk to Sharpness and a Ships' Graveyard

This walk started in little village of Purton, on the Gloucester - Sharpness Canal, where I encountered what must be the most unfriendly public footpath notice I've ever seen. Riled to the point of downright rebellion, I deliberately took my time, loitering as much as possible, and sat down beside the river bank to eat my apple. Angry farmer failed to appear.  Pity.

Oddly, the unfriendly notice only appears at the Purton end of the footpath. Walkers coming in the opposite direction are presumably free to loiter to their heart's content.

The loiter-inducing view over the River Severn is rather good...

A little further downstream is Purton Ships' Graveyard – a unique collection of decaying hulks, beached here from the early 1900s to help stabilise the river bank. It has the distinction of being the largest such 'graveyard' in the UK.  Those with better camera skills than mine would doubtless have hours of fun, but here are some of my modest efforts.

At the end of the graveyard the path rejoins the canal and before long I came upon the remains of the Severn Railway Bridge.  Opened in 1879, it provided a valuable outlet for Forest of Dean coal, as well as linking communities on either side of the River Severn.  On October 25th 1960 it was hit and badly damage by a couple of tanker barges, and soon after that the decision was made to demolish it.

Here's an old postcard view of the bridge...

From the bridge it's but a short walk to the end of the canal and Sharpness Dock. I'm rather pleased with this shot of the dock from the opposite side of the canal, with two figures making their way across the rail bridge.

This is the disused sea lock at the end of the canal. These days canal traffic has to go through the dock to get out on the Severn.

Finally, a view across the Severn to Lydney Harbour, near my home — about a mile away as the crow flies but 34 miles by road. It would have been a lot less if that rail bridge was still there!