Slimbridge Archives - Wandering Bells

We’ve been over-wintering on the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal. It’s our last week and we’re having one final cruise along its length before putting the boat into the marina while we go off on one of our van trips. When we come back in a few weeks, river levels permitting, we will be heading north out of the lock at Gloucester Docks, onto the River Severn up to Tewkesbury and back onto the main canal and river network.

This month has been tough; our dog Sammy suddenly became very poorly and sadly we had to take her to the vets for one last visit. She has practically grown up on this boat so not having her with us is very hard.

Needing a change of scenery, we escaped for a few days and caught the train into London. On our first night we went to the Duchess Theatre in the West End to see the play called “The Play That Goes Wrong”. Ian was laughing from start to finish. It reminded him of his university days when he was the lighting and stage manager for the Theatre Society. Everything that could go wrong in a performance does go wrong in this one and he was in stitches.

The next day we headed to Tower Hill to explore the city using a themed mystery guide which was both informative and good fun. Then it was a quick dash to Camden Market for Heather to go to her favourite boho/hippy clothing stall and acquire some very jazzy trousers before we zapped back across London to see some films in Leicester Square. Of course Heather went for the heart warming “Mother’s Pride” starring Martin Clunes and Ian headed for a sci-fi something that he’s still trying to work out!

Our last day was spent at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Kew Gardens. I think we were both surprised by their size and diversity, the botanical collections contain over 50,000 living plants. Believe it or not, they employ more scientists than gardeners as the primary mission of Kew Gardens is “to understand and protect plants and fungi, for the wellbeing of people and the future of all life on Earth”

We were lucky to get in to the Palm House as it’s about to be closed for five years for a complete refurbishment and they’ve already started the process of rehousing the plants. Some are to go to other botanical collections around the UK and some will be transferred to a temporary structure, sadly a few will not be saved. So I think we should plan to revisit in five years and see how it all turns out.

Back on the canal, the weather is improving, and we did one more visit to WWT Slimbridge where we were quite surprised to see it almost empty of birdlife. The geese, lapwings and waders have all moved on to find nesting sites, so the main excitement was to see the pairs of kingfishers flying in and out of their burrows. They are so fast and colourful, it was amazing to watch but very difficult to photograph.

This truly is a canal for bird lovers. From swans to tits to numerous birds of prey, there’s always something to spy through the binoculars and you do see twitchers wandering along the towpath with their huge lenses.
As for the 16 miles of the G & S, we have enjoyed our winter here. The length of it has felt a bit claustrophobic for continuous cruisers like us who like to explore new places, but the well managed water levels, lack of locks, manned bridges and the ease of winding (turning) the boat has made it all very easy going.
There have been a few down-sides such as a lack of boat facilities but it’s been manageable with planning. Access to public transport is also poor, so we’ve had to either walk further or book an Uber to get to the train station. You can only stock up with food in Gloucester, and one day we did a “dash” to the shops and cruised the full length of the canal in 4 hours (yes, that’s a speedy 4mph!!).

Overall, it has been a fascinating and safe base for the winter. We have loved our time here, enjoying the views and meeting friendly faces along the towpath and on the water. But our memories of the Gloucester and Sharpness will always be bitter-sweet.

Now we just have to hope, that when we come back at the end of April, the river is not in flood and we don’t meet any big boats on the narrow sections (we still have marks down the side of the boat from that close encounter!).

Tewkesbury 10th Feb 2026 picture courtesy of Gloucestershire News

The tow paths are muddy puddles and upstream the rain has swollen the River Severn to the point it has surrounded the Abbey at Tewkesbury! I’m relieved that we are on the canal and not at the mercy of the flood waters. Some of the images on social media have been quite scary. When there have been gaps in the rain, we’ve managed to get off the boat and explore a little more of the local area.

Frampton-on-Severn is a gorgeous village that has a green jewel at its heart. The village green is reputed to be the longest in the country. It is bordered by beautiful examples of 15th century buildings and magnificent Georgian mansions. Several of the oldest houses were rebuilt after a severe storm in 1560 at the start of the “Little Ice Age” which lasted for seventy years. The Frampton Estate has provided the backdrop for historical TV dramas such as Persuasion 1971 and Sanditon in 2019.

Beehive Cottage rebuilt after storm in c1560

The village borders the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal. Near to Fretherne Swing Bridge is a mill that was built during World War I by the famous Cadbury family. It helped to meet the growing demand for a new, milkier chocolate bar that had been created towards the end of the 19th Century. This area of rural Gloucestershire was renowned for its dairy farming, but moving vast quantities of fresh milk was expensive and difficult. In 1904, when George Cadbury introduced the new formula that needed more milk, they decided to build the factory closer to the Gloucestershire dairies and this led to the brand name of Dairy Milk Chocolate.

The old Cadbury Factory at Frampton-on-Severn

Where the Staffordshire potteries used the Trent & Mersey Canal to transport clay and bone china, Cadburys used lighters and barges to bring sugar cane and cocoa beans from ports along the Bristol Channel upriver to Sharpness and along the canal to the factory at Frampton. There it was blended and pressed with local milk to make chocolate crumb. It was then loaded onto narrowboats to head north along the River Severn and onto the Worcester and Birmingham Canal to reach Cadbury’s Bournville factory in Birmingham roughly 70 miles (113km) away.

Another blast from the past, but on a personal level, was our visit to the wetland nature reserve at Slimbridge. It’s been fifty years (yes that is a ridiculous amount of time) since we both visited there from a summer scout camp at Tetbury. Ian was a brand new knobbly kneed Scout and I was the ten year old nightmare daughter of the Scout Leader. This time it was a short walk from Patch Bridge to the visitors centre, The only part that we could both recognise was the high viewing tower at the entrance. To say that this wetland reserve has changed is an understatement, it’s now a fabulous maze of walkways and hides overlooking a patchwork of pools and lakes.

We saw deceits of Lapwings, coils of wigeon, rafts of ruddy ducks, lamentations of swans and gaggles of geese! There were no murmurations of starlings but strangely there was a flamboyance of flamingos. They were bit smelly though as they were all hiding together in their heated accommodation. At teatime we went to see Tilly, the resident otter, chasing after her food, sadly she was on her own as she waits for a new companion to arrive at her holt.

Talking of “wetland”, there’s currently 100 flood warnings in place across the UK due to the current blocked weather pattern causing endless rain. The River Severn is graded as dangerous and the lock at Tewkesbury, that we need to use to get on to the River Avon in April, is currently under water. For all those people who were praying for rain to keep the waterways navigation open last year, I think your prayers are being answered! I’m currently happy if I can find a stretch of towpath that isn’t a muddy swamp!

Slimbridge

Time to go?

Mud, Chocolate & Ruddy Ducks!