2-982-352 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

A New Channel at Upton-on-Severn, opened August 10, 1858. 'The works for the improvement of the navigation of the River Severn at the upper lode, near Tewkesbury, form the last of a series projected by Sir William Cubitt some years since...The works...were designed and have been executed by Mr. Eheader Williams, the engineer to the Severn Commission, assisted by his son, Mr. Alfred Williams, who has acted as resident engineer...[They] include a lock...[and] a basin...inclosed by a third pair of gates, which, when used with the upper gates of the lock, converts the whole of the intervening space into one large lock-chamber of 300 feet in length. The object of this arrangement is to pass a steam-tug, with her fleet of vessels, at one locking, thus effecting a great saving of time. The weir, which, with the lock, is constructed in a new channel...is 500 feet long, and is built with limestone from the neighbourhood of Chepstow...The closing of the old channel was effected by Mr. Williams with extraordinary celerity...The channel had been narrowed to the width of seventy feet, and all that remained to shut out the stream for ever from its time-honoured course was to sink a loaded barge and drive in the centre planks of the "timber sheathing".' From "Illustrated London News", 1858.