A cold day in deep mid-Winter. The Severn Railway Bridge used to cross the Sharpness canal then the River Severn, ending on the west bank at Lydney, before it was damaged by a shipping accident in 1960 and dismantled a few years later (but not before Sal and her family sailed under it on one of their earlier boating holidays). This pier column is one of the few remains, standing between the canal and the river.

There is a “Ships’ Graveyard” here, on the east bank of the Severn near Purton, where the hulls of over sixty former working boats were scuppered, mostly in the 1960s. More details here.