12th February 2018 - Severn Estuary from Lydney

Today’s walk is along the Severn Estuary. The sun was well and truly out despite it being quite cold. We parked in Lydney on a housing estate and walked out of town south along Naas Lane. This crosses the A48 and heads down to Lydney Golf Club. Thankfully we didn’t need to go as far as the golf course. The fields were damp from all the previous rain and were shimmering in the sun. It was boggy yet beautiful.

That amazing combo of sun and puddles.

The path then heads into the trees. The view of the river is somewhat obscured here but we could still see the sun glinting through. You can’t follow the river for long however as the path heads north across the fields and then crosses over the railway track. From here however you enter out into the fields and you have a spectacular view across the whole estuary. It looks like this is usually a field full of cows but thankfully it was too early in the year for them to be out.

The view that awaits on the estuary on a sunny day.

The path then heads down under an old railway bridge. From the field, you can see where there used to be a bridge across the river. Several of the pillars are still visible in the shallows. Walking past Ward’s Farm, we headed north along a narrow road. This road eventually headed back across the fields. At this point the sun decided it had had enough and disappeared for the remainder of the day. After crossing the A48 again, we thought we were just a few minutes from the car. However, Bellway Homes had different ideas.   

Under the old railway across the river.

   

The footpath emerged straight into a building site. There was no way around. To make matters worse, the site was locked and we were trapped inside. Someone from the showroom then came out to tell us we were trespassing. We informed her that we really didn’t want to be and if she’d kindly let us out we’d leave. She didn’t have the key however and told us we would have to go back the way we came. Seeing as that would have been another two miles we looked for another way out.

Looking arty next to the water.

We found a gap in the fence and scrambled through. Annoyingly we both managed to rip our clothing. This incident had put a dampener on what had been a nice walk. I cannot believe this company managed to get planning permission to build right on top of a public footpath. And then to not put in any diversion is pretty scandalous. I have tried getting in touch with Bellway Homes but nothing has come back from them. I was going to write to the council but unfortunately I haven’t had the time and it slipped my mind. Still, it was a lovely walk and thankfully there is still plenty of Severn River to explore.