SEVERN AND WYE
The locality round which most of the recollections of nearly half my
life centre is in the district of Gloucestershire, between the Severn
and the Wye (opposite Chepstow in Monmouthshire, plate IX.), almost at
the extremity of the peninsula, sometimes not inaptly called the “Forest
Peninsula,” as some of the “Hundreds” comprised in the more widely
extended area stretching on to the Forest of Dean near Newnham, are
technically called the “Forest Hundreds,” although what is commonly
thought of (at the present day) as the Forest of Dean, has long since
ceased to be connected, popularly speaking, with the lower extremity of
the peninsula. This is bounded on the two sides by the Severn and the
Wye respectively; and at intervals it presents to the Wye considerable
frontage of high cliffs of mountain limestone, and to the Severn red
marl, capped more or less with lias. It terminates at the junction of
the two rivers in a small area, which is an island at high water, but
accessibly connected with the mainland at low water. Here, that is on
the rocky ground at the point of confluence of the Wye with the Severn,
were still existing in my time (that is up to 1873) the few but massive
remains of the Hermitage and Chapels, popularly known collectively as
the Chapel of St. Tecla or Treacle Island (plate X.). The name as given
by William of Worcester in full form is “_Capella Sancti Teriaci
Anachoretæ_.” He describes the locality likewise as “The Rok Seynt
Tryacle,” but not having now the opportunity of consulting his
observations, I am not able to say whether the ancient chronicler gives
any reason for the building of this little but massive knot of
buildings, or for its overthrow, which must have been a somewhat
laborious task, and from the thickness and the solidly built nature of
the walls, one that required co-operation. In the short account given by
my father in “Strigulensia” from which I borrow some part of these
notes, he says, “It would be vain to attempt identification of the
Hermit whose name is associated with the ruins, and who does not appear
in the calendar of saints, but he occurs as follows in the “Valor
Ecclesiasticus” of Hen. VIII., vol. ii. p. 501,” “Capella Sancti Triaci
valet nihil, quâ stat in mare et nulla proficua inde proveniunt.”
Whether modern skilled archæologists may have thrown light on the early
history of the anchorite and his Severn and seaweed-girt chapel I do not
know, but few places could be found less attractive for the
archæeological picnic-excursions which have become fashionable of late
years. Even to my brothers and myself, accustomed as we were to Severn
mud, and to picking our way fairly safely over and amongst the coarse
brown slippery seaweed fronds (chiefly, if I remember rightly, the
_Fucus serratus_), the passage over such parts as were not then
submerged was an exceedingly muddy progress, needing a deal of care lest
we should take a sudden slide into one of the little rock basins
concealed by the “kelp” or other coarse brown seaweed. But once arrived,
it was very pleasant to sit in the sunshine and enjoy the glorious view
down the Estuary of the Severn, the fresh salt air blowing round us, or
otherwise employ ourselves to our fancy. From careful measurements we
found the length of the chapel to have been 31 feet 6 inches, the width
14 feet 6 inches, and the thickness of the walls, wherever sufficient
remained for observation, approximately 3 feet.[17] We had to be quick
in our operations and our return had to be kept in mind, or we should
have had to be fetched off in a boat, and under all circumstances it was
probably best for the sake of appearances that our walk home should be
as far as possible by the fields or under the cliffs where minutiæ as to
condition of boots, &c., were unimportant.
The characteristics of the scenery of each of the rivers are wholly
different. The Severn above Beachley and Aust (in former days the
land-points of the much-used “Old Passage”) spreads into a wide area of
water, perhaps about a mile wide at the narrowest, and at high tide
forming a noble lake-like expanse. The Wye, on the contrary, as shown in
the map (plate IX.), takes its sinuous and narrow course between
successive promontories, projecting alternately from the Gloucestershire
and Monmouthshire banks.
[Illustration:
RUINED ANCHORITE’S CHAPEL OF ST. TECLA, ON THE CHAPEL ROCK
WHERE SEVERN AND WYE MEET.
_From a sketch by Miss E.A. Ormerod._
(p. 33.)
]
[Illustration:
SEVERN CLIFFS, SEDBURY PARK.
(p. 40.)
]
Across some considerable portion of the river a quarter of a mile or so
above Beachley, on the Gloucestershire side, a rocky ledge of limestone
called “The Lyde” projects at low tide, causing a backwater of which the
steady roar can be heard at a long distance.[18] Cormorants on the rock,
and conger-eels below it, were regular inhabitants or visitors—the
former presumably attracted by the latter, which served to some degree
also as food to the fishermen, although pronounced to be
“slobbery-like.”
The muddy colour of the Severn was not in itself picturesque—at least I
have never heard the point mentioned with admiration; but to me, born as
I was by this noblest of our rivers, it seemed to convey a comfortable
idea of homeliness and strength. Sometimes, however, in the early
morning or in certain conditions of light, the deep rosy colouring was
almost as if the whole width of water had been changed to blood; then
the effect was very splendid, and as wonderful still as it must have
been in days long gone by to Queen Boadicea:—
“Still rolls thy crimson flood in glory on
As when of old its deep ensanguined dye
Told to the warrior Queen her falling throne,
Her people’s death, the foemen’s victory.”
But, independently of other considerations, a bend in the river was of
great local service. It formed a bay of about perhaps three-quarters of
a mile across, bounded to the west by our own and the Beachley cliffs,
and further protected, or endangered, on the southern side by a low
range of rocks running out into the river. With the rising tide the
import shipping to Gloucester, which in those days was extensive, put in
here to be searched by the Custom House officials. At that time
(excepting tugs) it was entirely composed of sailing vessels mostly
laden with corn, wine, and timber, and the mixed fleet moving about in
the bay with colours flying was a very lively sight. In due time they
passed on—the three-masters, ships, and barques, or the graceful
chasse-marées, taking the lead; brigs and schooners following, and
sloops and—if weather permitted—Severn trows bringing up the rear.
These, however, as they differed very little in formation from canal
barges, required tolerably fair or at least quiet weather to allow them
to proceed in safety. The procession of shipping came along almost
beneath our cliffs, the deep channel being on that side, and perhaps it
was as well that they were no nearer, or the nautical remarks might have
been more often audible to the young people than was desirable!
A special convenience to ourselves was a little creek under the cliffs,
called in those parts a “pill” (presumably from the Welsh pwll or pool),
which allowed of coals being run in a sloop across from Bristol and
carted up to the house by a shorter road than that from Chepstow.
* * * * *
[Illustration:
FIG. (A).—PUTCHER FOR CATCHING SALMON.
]
Salmon fishing was carried on partly by nets from fishing boats, partly
by rows of baskets known as “putts” or “putchers.” The boats during the
boat fishing lay above the edge of the water on the sloping and slippery
frontage of the shore. When the tide served for fishing, the men went
down from the village above the cliffs to their boats across the flat
and precipitously-edged grass, between the base of the low cliffs and
the sloping shore. Each man wriggled with might and main at his boat
till he loosened its adhesion to the tenacious mud and started it on its
slide with its bows foremost towards the water. Once off, of course the
pace accelerated; its owner, running behind, held on and clambered in as
best he could, and the two arrived safely and with a great jolt on the
water. The boats then formed in line, secured by being tied stern to
stern at about a boat’s length from each other, and presumably anchored
also, but this I do not remember. The net of each boat was lowered, and
nothing further occurred till a fish was captured; then the net was
lifted, the fish, shining in all the beauty of its silvery scales, taken
out, and the net lowered again. These were the best fish; those that
were caught in the putts were “drowned” fish, and unless the fishermen
were fairly on the alert to secure them before the falling tide had left
the baskets long uncovered, there was a very good chance of the eyes
being pecked out or the fish otherwise disfigured by birds.
The putcher or basket fishing was carried on by means of very open
extinguisher-shaped baskets each long enough to hold, it can hardly be
said accommodate, a good-sized salmon. The frame or stand on which these
baskets were fixed was formed of two rows of strong poles or upright
pieces of wood, running down the shore, across the narrow of the river,
for many yards, firmly fixed between high and low tide level, at such a
distance as would allow the baskets to reach from one side to the other.
Horizontal poles or pieces of wood connected the upright poles, and to
these horizontal supports the baskets were attached, so as to form rows
with the open ends of the extinguishers facing up stream and all ranged
one storey above the other. The fish were drifted into the basket trap,
and of course, though they might injure themselves in their struggles,
and to some degree their market value, they were powerless to effect
their escape and withdraw backward against the set of the tide.[19]
The much larger form of basket described by Mr. Buckland as “putts,” and
as being used for catching flat fish, was of a slightly different
make—formed only of two instead of three pieces; one large piece, so
wide at the opening that I, as a girl, had no difficulty in standing
within it, and a very much smaller piece, forming a kind of nose. This
little adjunct was, I believe, taken off and searched by the fishermen
for what it contained. To my sister Georgiana and myself it was a great
pleasure to go down to where the two great eel-putts stood on clean
shore at very low tide below the longest row of salmon-putchers, and
search for anything that was to be found. My sister was a good
conchologist. We searched for seaweed, &c., &c., and thereby got a deal
of pleasant amusement. The fishermen, who knew us well, made no
objection to our investigations, though, as one of the men remarked on
one occasion, “It was not everybody they liked to see near the putts.”
In our immediate neighbourhood the fishermen were quiet—at least I never
heard of their getting into very objectionable difficulties—but about
eight miles higher up the river, near Lydney, things in this respect
were by no means all that could be wished. On one occasion they captured
the Fishery Inspector himself—whose duty it was to ascertain that the
meshes were not below a certain measurement—and secured him in the nets.
Another time somebody (who, unluckily for him, bore some resemblance to
the obnoxious inspector) got nearly sloughed up in one of the great
marsh ditches, and would have been left to live or die as might
chance—probably the latter—but for the arrival of timely help. My father
being one of the acting magistrates of the district, we used to hear
from time to time of these and other “mauvaises plaisanteries” in the
neighbourhood of the Forest of Dean.
* * * * *
On reference to the portion of the Ordnance Map (plate IX.) it will be
seen that there is a broad band marked “mud,” of about a sixth of a mile
in width at the widest part and extending for about a mile and a half by
the side of the deep channel of the Severn, between it and the cliffs of
the Beachley and Sedbury Bay.
The most remarkable capture of which I have any recollection as taking
place in the waters, or rather in the mud of the Severn, was said to be
a “Bottle-nosed whale,” or Dolphin, _Delphinus tursio_, Fabr., but it
was so many decades of years ago, that I have no means now of turning to
any record for verification of the species. The capture itself excited a
deal of local interest. It was on a summer morning that one of my
brothers, enlivening his vacation studies, as was his custom, by
watching through his telescope anything of interest that might be going
on amongst the shipping or elsewhere, saw something like an enormous
fish struggling and “flopping” on the Beachley pier of the old Passage
Ferry. As a matter of course, we young folks set off after luncheon to
have our share of the sight, and found the creature had been captured
when lying helpless, or half dead, in the mud at the Aust side of the
Ferry, and had been towed across behind a boat. At this distance of time
I only remember the whale- or dolphin-like shape of the animal, its
great size, and that it was apparently of a greyish colour; but this
item might very likely be from its being coated with Severn mud. In
Bell’s “British Quadrupeds” the greatest length recorded of various
specimens found in England is 12 feet. The colour of the back is black,
with a purplish tinge, becoming dusky on the sides, and dirty white on
the belly. This species is considered rare in England and it is of some
interest, in referring to the locality of what may be called our own
capture, that “The first account which we have of its appearance on our
own shores is that of John Hunter,” and it was taken with its young one
“on the sea coast near Berkeley”; that is about two or three miles
higher up the left bank of the Severn than the Aust Cliffs. Another
specimen was found in the river Dart in Devonshire, and, it was stated,
“was killed with difficulty, the poor animal having suffered for four
hours the attacks of eight men armed with spears and two guns, and
assisted by dogs. When wounded it made a noise like the bellowing of a
bull.”[20] In the case of the Old Passage specimen the poor creature was
also most barbarously treated, chiefly by being attacked by the running
of hay forks, pitch forks, and the like, into its body, and I remember a
good deal of chopping with hatchets or axes, but it was quite quiet and,
it was to be hoped, was past feeling pain. Immense popular interest, of
course, was excited as to the precise nature of the unusual “take,” as
to whether it was a Leviathan, or possibly the kind of fish that
swallowed Jonah—but the affair ended by the creature being shipped off
to Bristol to be turned into a little money for the boatmen who secured
it, and no other cetacean was taken during the remainder of the years in
which Sedbury was my home.
* * * * *
The most observable of the seaweeds, which grew on the rocks or large
stones, more or less in the muddy salt water between tide levels at the
mouth of the Severn, were of the genus _Fucus_, which at one time was
much used in the making of kelp. The ornamental kinds always appeared to
me to be unaccountably absent. They were not to be expected to make this
place their habitat, but, still, their almost total absence in the
masses of drift matter left by the retiring tide struck me as curious.
In my most successful searches I do not remember ever being fortunate
enough to secure even a fragment of the lovely Oak-leaf, _Delesseria_,
with its bright, rosy-veined leaves from as much as 4 inches to 8 inches
in length placed along their cylindrical stem, or the Peacock seaweed,
_Padina pavonea_, with its concentric markings. Of Iceland Moss there
might be a battered morsel. The general composition of the driftage was
composed of little except what might be grown in the neighbourhood,
mixed with sugar cane or packing material thrown from the vessels. This,
however, seemed to me of some interest in connection with the set of the
currents. Here, however, I am out of my element, but as my brother Dr.
Ormerod employed me as a collector, I am not personally responsible.
The distinct varieties of soil, and also the geographical and the
geological surroundings of Sedbury, were unusually favourable to natural
history investigations, whether of fauna and flora of the present day,
or of fossil remains of saurians and shells. These were easily
accessible as they fell from the frontage of lias, or the narrow
horizontal strip in the cliffs (plate IX.) facing the Severn, well known
to the geologists as the “bone bed.” At the highest part the cliffs were
about 140 feet, calculating from medium tide level. There the face had
been quarried back for a supply of lias limestone, used in enlarging the
offices of the house, and in so doing had laid bare a fine bed of
so-called “Venus” shells. We used to find beautiful specimens of those
shells, irrespective of this extra fine deposit, and also of “patens,”
oysters of some kind, which we sought for unweariedly, hammer in hand.
The greatest matters of interest, however, were the saurian, or the fish
remains, of which we sometimes found a plentiful supply of specimens of
little value, and now and then some of considerable interest.
[Illustration:
PLATE XI.
ROMAN POTTERY, FOUND IN SEDBURY PARK.
_From a drawing by Miss E. A. Ormerod._
(_p. 18._)
]
[Illustration:
SAURIAN FROM THE LIAS, SEDBURY CLIFFS.
(_p. 41._)
]
The Sedbury cliffs lie nearly north of the Aust cliff, and contain the
Aust bone bed, from which the Severn, about a mile wide, or somewhat
more, there divides them. Geologically, in all important
characteristics, I believe the two cliffs correspond. Of this bone bed
it is noted by Sir Charles Lyell[21]: “In England the Lias is succeeded
by conformable strata of red and green marl or clay. There intervenes,
however, both in the neighbourhood of Exmouth, in Devonshire, and in the
cliffs of Westbury and Aust, in Gloucestershire, on the banks of the
Severn, a dark-coloured stratum, well known by the name of the ‘bone
bed.’ It abounds in the remains of saurians and fish, and was formerly
classed as the lowest bed of Lias; but Sir P. Egerton has shown that it
should be referred to as the Upper New Red Sandstone.” The reasons given
are not of interest to the general reader. From the fallen _débris_ of
this we collected vertebræ, single, or sometimes a few in connection,
also bones of the paddles, and any amount of teeth, also coprolites, the
excrementitious matter of the living owners of the bones. These were in
great quantity, but I never remember that they were other than irregular
lumps, and though some of us were much given to grinding and polishing
stones that afforded hope of an ornamental result, it never occurred to
us to exercise our talents on these lumps, which might have indicated in
their undigested contents some evidence of the diet of their consumers.
The only valuable or interesting specimen of Saurian remains (that is of
an animal in moderate degree of entirety) fell from the cliffs after I
had ceased to reside there. This was a slab of Lias about 3 feet long by
2 feet broad, and about 7 to 9 inches thick (plate XI.) The history of
its fall, as given to me in a letter from Dr. John Yeats, F.R.G.S., then
residing at Chepstow, dated September, 1882, was, that “From one of the
ledges, or from the top of a slip or subsidence, a fir tree was blown
down during the autumn of 1882.... The fossil was found beneath the
roots,” and “the fossil remains were laid bare by a conchoidal
fracture.” A few detached vertebræ were collected, but unfortunately no
part of the head was secured. Of this specimen Professor Richard Owen
was good enough to report to Dr. Yeats on the 24th of May, 1883, as
follows: “From the concavity of the articular surfaces of the vertebræ,
I infer it to be part of an ichthyosaurus, and the number and character
of the ribs agree with that deduction. If any part of the jaws or teeth
should be found near the locality it would decide the matter.”
This fossil is now in the possession of Sir William H. Marling, at
Sedbury.
The surface of the cliffs was of a very mixed nature, with ledges of
stone projecting slightly in places, and from the effect of weathering,
landslips, leading at times to inconvenience, were not infrequent. As we
knew the nature of the ground we were careful about going near the edge
of the top of the cliff, where a precipice or a crack showed danger, but
it happened more than once that a bullock or calf, attracted by food to
be found amongst the trees or bushes which in some places clothed the
slanting upper part, was tempted beyond safe footing, and toppled down
to the bottom to its own destruction. On one occasion, on returning from
a walk, my sister Georgiana and I, not having noticed a fall from the
cliffs, were cut off by one of these slips from any comfortable advance.
It was not a case of danger, but a choice between much wet and dirt from
Severn mud, or very considerable discomfort of another sort, as the slip
had brought down with it brambles, &c., &c., most unpleasant to brave
for the sake of dryness. We preferred the wet passage, feeling our way
with our feet through the muddy water from one good-sized stone to
another, and presently arrived safely above the high-tide level, but to
those who did not know that beneath the muddy surface there was a sound
footing if sought for, the little episode might have been unpleasant.
[Illustration:
PLATE XII.
ROYAL MAIL STARTING FROM OLD GENERAL POST OFFICE, LONDON.
_Original lent by Arthur Ackermann & Son, 191, Regent Street, W._
]
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