About

Shakespeare's Avon rises in Northamptonshire and flows through Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire to join the Severn at Tewkesbury, a distance of 140 miles. Three of the most significant battles in English history were fought on its banks: Evesham (1265), Tewkesbury (1471) and Nazeby (1645).

Rivers have long since been used to transport both goods and people and, through the ages, works such as weirs and locks were built to facilitate such use. The Avon was no exception.

On the Avon the prime legislation is an Order in Council of 9th March, 1635, under which Charles I authorised William Sandys of Fladbury:

"- to make the River of Avon - Passable, for Boates of reasonable Burthen from Severne where that River falls in neare Teuxbury through the severall counties of Worcester, Gloucester and Warwick unto or neare the citty of Coventry - "

In 1639 Captain John Taylor reported the Avon to be "navigable to within four miles of Warwick" and early in the 18th century Daniel Defoe noted that "many goods were carried by water almost to Warwick". This made it the first river in England to be made navigable by means of pound locks. In 1717 the river was divided into Lower and Upper sections, from Tewkesbury to Evesham and from Evesham to Stratford-upon-Avon and beyond. In 1751 the Avon Navigation Act decreed that:

" - the said river Avon shall forever thereafter be accounted and be a free river and all and every person and persons shall have liberty of passing and re-passing up and down the said river with boats, barges, lighters and other vessels etc".

(Subject always to the appropriate bye-laws.)

In 1758 George Perrott acquired the Navigation which had become impassable in places and over a period of 10 years restored it.

Since 1635 the Avon Navigation, either in whole or in part, has been available for the passage of vessels and from 1816, with the building of the Stratford and the Worcester-Birmingham Canals, became part of the "Avon Ring" of waterways, a 109-mile circular system with connections to all parts of the national waterway network, which extended over 3,000 miles.

In 1830 the Lower Avon Navigation was leased to the Worcester-Birmingham Canal Company, which carried out maintenance on it until the railway between Evesham and Gloucester was opened which caused substantial losses, the lease being terminated in 1872.

However, in the mid 1850s the Upper Avon Navigation was acquired by a competing railway company. Sadly, by 1874 the navigation was derelict and soon its navigation works were swept away.

In spite of the efforts of the River Avon Improvement Association, formed in 1899, the Commissioners' recommendations at the public enquiry of 1903, which could have led to restoration, were not accepted.

By 1914, due to insufficient income for maintenance of the Lower Avon Navigation, this was being undertaken by the traffic operators, mill owners and local councils. In 1919 the Ministry of Transport turned down a scheme to restore the whole length of the River Avon on the grounds of prohibitive cost.

By 1930 the southern section of the Stratford Canal was derelict and the Lower Avon rapidly deteriorating.

THUS THE AVON RING WAS SHATTERED.