Hafren river cruise boat

What's up, folks? As any long-term reader will know, I absolutely love quirky stuff, and I like shipwrecks too. You may remember I swam out to a capsised cruise ship off the coast of Greece. And much to my delight, Shropshire has something of an equivalent! Obviously it's not as big, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in cuteness (to quote my old dating profile). This is the Hafren, and it was to Ironbridge what the Sabrina boat is to Shrewsbury. And that's quite fitting really, because in Welsh folklore, Hafren and Sabrina were the same person.

And that brings us down the long-winded legend route, so to break up the wall of text, here's a photo of Hafren back when it was still operational. 

(Photo credit: Bill Cox)

According to folklore, Hafren was the illegitimate daughter of Locrin and his secret lover, Estrildis, who he found on a Germanic ship after a botched invasion. But Locrin was forced into a diplomatic marriage with Gwendolen, the princess of Cornwall. But when Gwendolen's father died, Locrin suddenly had no reason to suck up to some foreign monarch anymore and promptly divorced Gwendolen and married Estrildis. Gwendolen was miffed, and did the popular thing in circa 1100BC, which was raise an army and kill the lot of them. Hafren and her mother were drowned in the River Severn near Dolforwyn Castle, Dolforwyn literally translating to Maidens Meadow.

 

(Photo not mine. Credit unknown)

 

Gwendolen named the river after Hafren. "Severn" seems to be a distorted version of the name. Remember, "F" makes a "V" sound in Welsh, and the whole thing was further murkied up by the Romans, who renamed Hafren "Sabrina." They also seem to have added a plot twist that Locrin, or Locrinus, is the grandson of the Goddess Venus, giving the family tree that divinity that presumably causes Hafren/Sabrina to be referred to as a river goddess. 

Some legends say that Hafren still haunts the river, and can be seen on foggy nights. And technically, if we consider the boat, a Hafren does still haunt the Severn, tragically following its namesakes footsteps.

 

Anyway, it goes without saying that I boarded the Hafren. How could I not? It just wouldn't be an adventure if I didn't perch precariously on something unstable and wave at canoeists while wearing a pirate hat.

 

The Hafren sure is dirty, but once I was actually on it, I noticed a few details shining through the filth. It has the faint vestiges of its former paint job and there's still a telephone number here.

Across the river, there's a deer! It came down for a drink but took off when it realised it had my attention. I'm afraid there's no way to scramble across a diagonally slanted shipwreck in a subtle or graceful way.

From what I have read from old articles, the Hafren first set sail on the Severn in Easter 2010, and was the first river cruise boat in Ironbridge in half a decade, it's predecessor being sunk by vandals. What Hafren was doing prior to river cruises in Ironbridge, I don't know, but I think it was actually purchased from America.

 

It did regular cruises along the river for £3 per person, lasting 45 minutes, seven days a week, although subject to cancellations if weather conditions were shite. The Shropshire Star did report in 2012 that the cruises might be forced to stop due to the water level dropping. Certainly an alien concept in the 2020s where the British seasons go Winter, Spring, Winter, Spring, Winter, Spring, Summer, Winter, Autumn, Winter, all in the space of a week. 

But the Hafren was popular. It had very positive reviews, mentioning very knowledgeable staff and a great vantage point for spotting wildlife. 

It also had a sister boat, called Bumblebee, whose chain snapped in 2013, sending it free-floating all the way to Bridgnorth. I guess we should refer to it in the past tense as Bumblebeen.

 

It's still possible to peek through the windows and take a look at the Hafren's interior.

 

 

This appears to be a desk or something. There's a chunk of wet mud there too, indicative that the water level has dropped a bit. 

 

 

And here we have the fold-down seats. 

 

I'm not sure when the boat sank, but I think it was around 2017-ish. The owners were clearly quite passionate about what they did, having had numerous boats on the Severn over the years, and while the Hafren did get a bit damaged, they apparently did have the means to repair it. But from what I can tell, they live elsewhere and relied on someone else to keep them updated, and this person neglected to inform them that their beloved boat had started sinking. By the time they found out, it was too late to do anything. Hafren could have been saved if the communication had been there.

 

But as I looked down through the windows at the rows of seats, I realised that it simply wasn't enough to sit on the Hafren and peer in. I decided that these seats would look so much better from the opposite angle. So I slipped inside.

Now, to clarify, these antics are the product of my own crazy quest for dopamine, and I don't condone this at all. The boat was stirring under me. It's embedded in silt, and not exactly stable. The diagonal angle of the boat didn't make it tricky to walk through because the interior was also full of silt. But if something was to go wrong, I wouldn't be able to get out of here quickly if every footstep sinks me halfway up my shins. 

So yeah... don't do this. I'm a terrible role model.

Here we are at the desk we saw earlier.

And here are all the fold-down seats. Only a few years ago, people would be sat on these, checking out the wildlife mooching about around the river. It would have been quite pleasant.

But alas, the Hafren will likely never sail again. It has truly followed in the path of its namesake, the young girl Hafren of Welsh folklore who met her end in the river. And with recent rainfall I'd be very surprised if it hasn't deteriorated further. But that's part of what made this adventure special. There will come a time when it will be impossible to wade through the Hafren and sit on its roof, and appreciate the service that the owners once provided with it.

 

And that's all I've got for today. Wasn't this cool? As far as abandoned things go, it's definitely different, and it gave me a bit of a challenge, which I love. I don't think there are many who would actually go into it. The average human, after all, has a survival instinct. But I like shipwrecks for some reason, so it won me over. As far as trips to Ironbridge go, I'm satisfied. 

I'm satisfyonbridge.

 

My next blog will be more boats! Less awful puns! Exciting times!

 

And to make sure you don't miss any blog updates, follow my social media! I'm active on the algorithmic shit shows that are Instagram, Facebook, and Threads, as well as Twitter for some reason. And I also dabble in any attempt to come up with superior alternatives, and this has led me to Vero and Bluesky, which I use with shocking regularity. 

 

Thanks for reading!

Aqueduct

 

Ages ago, way back when I first did Calcott Hall and the Knights Templar Cave armed only with a terrible samsung to take pictures, we also swung by this aqueduct. And for some reason I didn't take any pictures. I mean, I appreciated it for its historic significance, and I thought it was cool, but at the time I was young and riding a wave of exhilaration from having snuck into some abandoned houses for the first time after years of scaling every building in Shrewsbury, so this didn't excite me quite as much. I was still a baby in urbex terms, and I was prioritising the adrenaline rush over the history. 

But a decade or so of urbex has made me humble, and it's time to give this thing the attention it deserves. 

The aqueduct is sixteen feet high and 187 feet long, and was built for the Shropshire Union Canals "Shrewsbury branch" which was established way back in 1793 when canals were all the rage.

It was originally built out of stone by a chap called Josiah Clowes, but he passed away in 1795 and a freak flood washed his aqueduct away shortly after. And that is rather hilariously tragic. It's almost like the universe just wanted to smite him. It's cancel culture of biblical proportions.

 

But the canal trade still needed an aqueduct, so along came Thomas Telford, the engineer extraordinaire. I spoke about him in my blog about St Chads, where he strongly advised doing work on the church, and was promptly ignored, resulting in its collapse. And in case it wasn't obvious, the town "Telford" is named after him too, which I guess gives him more in common with Howard Taylor Ricketts and Daniel Alcides Carrion. 

However, despite hogging the credit for the aqueduct, just how much input he had on it is questionable. Most will agree that there was some committee involved, or that Thomas Telford was merely carrying out someone else's idea. 

But this was still a proving ground for Thomas Telford's ambitions, because this demonstrated the efficiency of cast iron aqueducts, requiring less material and taking less time. After this, Thomas Telford went on to create the much larger and more famous Pontcysllte aqueduct in 1805, which can still be traversed to this day. And this thing, rotting away in a field, was the prototype.

Naturally, there's no end of photos showing this thing over the decades. It's been enjoyed for numerous generations.

 (Image not mine, obviously)

 

 So this photo was apparently taken on September 18 1974, at which point the canal was long dried up and the aqueduct long abandoned. There's a woman and her son enjoying the view. And I kinda love that people have been appreciating this place for so long, despite it being long redundant. 

At either end of the aqueduct are these brick arches that are allegedly retained from the original Josiah Clowes aqueduct. Thomas Telford incorporated them into his designs, giving the whole thing a bit of a hybrid appearance. 

Now they're just areas where livestock can go to piss and shit, but much to my amazement there is one image of this aqueduct that shows the river flowing through these archways.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

Check it out! I haven't got a date for this image, but it has to be pretty damn old, because all others show the river where it is today. Somehow, over the course of two hundred years, the river has altered its course somewhat.

Here's another old picture that shows the river in its more familiar location.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

The entire river has moved. Isn't that intriguing?

 

Getting up onto the aqueduct is a doddle. The canal is long gone and the ground just slopes up to it. 

 

 

While it's often said to be the first ever cast iron aqueduct, even by Thomas Telford himself in his own notes, he was beaten to the punch by mere weeks by Benjamin Outram, who built one for the Derby Canal. But that ones not around anymore, meaning that this is only the oldest surviving cast iron aqueduct, and that is still pretty cool.

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

Frustratingly, while there was loads of photos of people mooching about on the aqueduct, very few of them seem to show it with water. But what this one image does show us is the end of the aqueduct still somewhat elevated above the ground and surrounded by trees, unlike the gentle grassy incline that we have today.

 

 But much to my delight, I did find one photo that shows the aqueduct with water.

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

And here it is. It's a bunch of guys on a boat coming down the aqueduct while a bunch of other people stand at the side on the tow path. And it all looks rather precarious, with the footpath being set on the same level as the waterbed. On most canal tow paths, the water surface is usually level with our feet, but not here. The water level is belly-height on these pedestrians.

 

This was often remarked on as a rather odd design. Horses towing the barges could turn their heads and slurp up some canal water if they were thirsty. So can humans, but it's not recommended. 

 

Here we are at the back of the aqueduct...

The Backqueduct. 

 

So the canal was actually considered for closure as long ago as 1899 due to its declining trade, and apparently the aqueduct was in need of maintenance even then. But the canal managed to chug along for a few more decades, until 1944 when a decline in trade led to it being abandoned. 

 

From what I understand, the aqueduct was dried out in the 1950s, and the embankment was leveled sometime after that. There's actually very little evidence that the canal was ever even there.

In 1968 there were plans to remove the aqueduct and take it to Blists Hill to be part of the Ironbridge Gorge museum, and honestly I would have loved that. That's a much nicer fate for it than outright demolition. But for some reason this didn't happen, and now the aqueduct just sits here as a monument to a former thriving industry.

The gate here would indicate that the farmer is using the aqueduct now, but even this is looking a little worse for wear. I don't think anyone has been through here in a while.

That's all I've got. So the aqueduct is publicly accessible, making it slightly anomalous on this blog. But it still ticks my boxes. It's old, it's disused, and it's historically significant. I think it's rather photogenic too, and I've taken far too many shots than I really needed, but hey-ho. 

My next blog will be short and sweet, but also pretty exciting, and as always if you prefer more traditional urbex then my travel blog has some pretty cool adventures from all over Europe.

In the meantime, to stay updated on my blogs, then give my social medias a follow. I know, they're all shit and algorithmic, but it's the best way unfortunately. I'm on the big ones, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as the spawn of the Zuckerberg/Musk dick measuring contest, Threads. And I'm on the ones that people have made to try make the social media landscape less shit, Vero and BlueSky. Give me a follow wherever you happen to be.

Thanks for reading!

The Edgmond Pillbox

 

This will be a quick one. There's a lot of smaller stuff dotted around that hasn't escaped my notice, but has escaped my immediate attention while I typically favour larger adventures. But I have been making a point of trying to get around to these smaller places, and that has brought me to this delightful pillbox, situated somewhere north of Telford. 

For those of you who don't know, pillboxes are defence structures built in 1940 and 1941 as a precaution for possible enemy invasion. The idea was that people could fire at the enemy through the holes in the walls, from relative safety.

Most of them are at strategic points or outside military bases, which makes this one seemingly an anomaly in that it's plonked in the middle of nowhere, between a field and a country road.

 

But it's actually guarding a bridge. Bridges were points of interest because in the event of a land invasion, rivers and canals would make natural barriers and fallback points. So bridges were protected. Granted this ones easily overlooked because today the "natural barrier" in question looks more like a trip hazard than an obstacle.

 But if we look at old maps, we can see that this was once Edgmond Wharf, and part of the Shropshire Union Canal. It's now a shadow of itself, but in 1940 those pesky Nazis would definitely be taking the bridge, and probably getting gunned down from this pillbox.

 

But it's all hypothetical. As the war chugged on, it became less and less likely that the Nazis would invade the UK (If they had, we probably would have let them keep Telford, let's be honest) and consequently pillboxes were never actually used, except maybe by kids looking for a place to piss, shag or smoke. But this one being so rural, it hasn't even had that! There's a bit of graffiti but that's it.

 

 

I do have a soft spot for pillboxes, but I have to be honest, they aren't visually exciting. There's a door, and then it's just a quick stroll around a hexagonal box looking out through various windows. I can totally understand why these aren't everyone's cup of tea. 

 

 

 

But for me, these represent a visual reminder that there was a time when our safe little island of miserable tea drinkers actually had to contend with the possibility that we might be invaded by a foreign nation. In the UK, we really only hear about it happening to other people. We've never lived it.

Unless you're Celtic and about a thousand years old, but that's another story. 

From a patriotic standpoint, we can look at this as a symbol of just how prepared we were. We overcompensated big time, and the UK is covered in remnants of that effort. Better to have a pillbox and not need it, than be shot by a Nazi while out walking the dog along the canal.

But there's something about this that gets my imagination racing. It's a hypothetical scenario. It leads us to wonder just what would have happened if we had been invaded, and it's quite a scary thought when we can imagine these familiar, peaceful places being literal battlegrounds.

And that's why I love them.

 

 So that's all I've got. I said it was a quick one! There's minimal vandalism and graffiti in this pillbox so if you are a war nerd, it might well be worth a quick mooch. If you want something more exciting, then I've recently done some cool things on my travel blog.

I've also recently been interviewed by BBC Radio Shropshire, so by all means give that a listen too.

I would like to promise more exciting blogs on the horizon, but I feel that such a statement is unfair on the little pillbox, because I do like it, and sometimes it's nice to write something short and sweet. What I can promise you is more Telford in the future. The Nazis didn't invade, but I did. 

In the meantime, feel free to follow my social media accounts to stay updated on the blog. I'm on the main shit ones- Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, its deformed twin Threads, and the various attempts to make social media better, Vero and Blue Sky.

Thanks for reading!