so that is the 26 year old prince of wales bridge carrying the m4
across the river seven and it's the most recent means to carry people
across what is considered one of the most dangerous estuaries in the uk
and that's for good reason because today's video contains stories of drowned soldiers Daniel Defoe
abandoned flooded tunnels and an 800 year old toll crossing
the estuary has a 50 foot tidal range that's the second biggest in the world
now that combined with the treacherous currents here means that it's an extremely
dangerous crossing but it hasn't stopped people from millennia coming up with some
really quirky ways to get from one side to the other now this is the west side of the estuary
and in particular it's beechly it's a little bit that juts out into the estuary itself now the
fact that it does jut out into the estuary probably gives us a little bit of context
as to why just back up there is one of the first crossing points of the seven estuary
and potentially the most dangerous but i'll let you decide that as we head up beachley
so a little bit further up beachley and then the head the jetty out a bit
this huge earthwork that i'm walking on now goes right from here all the way up through
to north wales and it's offers dyke now this is
supposedly an eighth century border between mercia and the the welsh kingdoms of the princes
at the top of this hill it comes to the coast and it's said to link up on the
east side with an ancient trackway that came down from the cotswolds this stone right here
marks the start or the finish whichever way you come from of offers dike 160 170 mile pathway
right to north wales after the retreat of the ice this route is likely to have been used with
primitive rafts making use of the currents here the tidal flow carrying them north east as they
came inwards and south west as the tide went out the fact that offers dyke was placed here
is a good indication that this route did survive through roman times and onwards
until at least the 8th or 9th century that said we shouldn't rule out the possibility that the
romans took a very different route across the seven on the west side near williston there are
some ancient trackways heading towards the seven at the exact spot a roman villa has been found
to the best of my knowledge and research there's no such crossing here and that makes perfect sense
it's quite an experience here and we know that the romans like getting their feet wet they're like
fords so let's move forward a thousand years and try and find something a little bit more tangible
the first documented evidence of somebody crossing the estuary was in 11 31 a.d when
lord of the manor of tiddenham weinbold de balon gave permission to the monks of tintern to cross
to oust by ferry now over the centuries this became known as the old passage now remember that
as we head south that's quite important so this part of the estuary just here is called seven
beach and there's a few uh amenities for families in that now based on what we know
about that body of water just there i wouldn't be bringing my kids uh to this beach to play
and that's key here because despite that being referred to as new passage it's possible it was
used before the old passage so the old passage could be newer than the new passage anyway in 1625
cromwell closed the new passage or what was then that passage because of an incident
with a number of parliamentary troops who became marooned out on the english stones
and died that route didn't open again for 73 years when it became known as the new passage
such was the danger of the ferries at the time daniel defoe wrote the sea was
so broad the fame of the boar of the tide so formidable the wind also made water so rough
and which was worse the boats to carry over both man and horse appeared so very mean that in short
none of us cared to venture so we came back and resolved to keep on the road to gloucester
it took another 85 years for the next attempt to traverse the seven this one
was commercially backed could we finally have a safe means of crossing this estuary
we're a good 10 15 miles further north the village of newan behind us or the town of newham
and the churchyard here and the year is 1810. now a very early railway was built
in that year at the bullopil tramway now that brought goods from the forest of dean
all the way down to the coast there and then moved them up and down the estuary on boats
onto the mainland of the uk part of the early railway at the time was the longest tunnel in
the world so they were full of confidence so what would stop them from building another tunnel
under the seven to get to the mainland a lot quicker roger tipping and his team
were tasked with just that so they set about building another tunnel this time underwater
but it didn't work within a year or so they made it at least halfway across the estuary there
but unfortunately when they got to a specific point the water ingress
occurred at such a rate that a couple of the workers then narrowly escaped with their lives
the project was abandoned they couldn't pump the water out fast enough in fact one of the shafts
for that actual tunnel that was used to pump water out still survives on the coast edge to this day
the tide's coming in quite fast i was gonna have a look for it but i don't think i'll make it
move forward a couple of decades and we still have no tunnel and no bridge just some rather ropey
ferries in 1825 the new passage association formed and decided to invest in a 30-tonne
steam boat this would have been great if the dastardly duke of beaufort
hadn't invested in some boats on the oust old ferry route meaning quicker shorter
service
all was not lost however for the new passage 1863
and the coming of the railways the bristol and wales union railway and they utilized the ferry
one of two ferries to cross the water you could embark from your train just up there
and re-embark just here i say just here i just mean just out there on a purpose-built pier
you then head that way through the cutting that's just below this bridge under this bridge
round the curve and you join the main line carry on your journey
into the rest of south wales now that's all good but people don't like getting on an offer train
people like a journey that takes them from a to b so is it about time we had a bridge
it's 1879 and it's time for that bridge it was an ill-fated brick because you'd think a bridge that
would save you miles on a journey between bristol and cardiff would actually be really popular but
it wasn't the lack of join up to the network the mineral depression perhaps accounting for
its lack of use that's not the most tragic reason though for this bridges failure
and here we are it's been quite a walk to get here i can tell you so this is the center
column for what would have been here represented here by this swing bridge
and then out to the estuary you'd have had 21 spans over the other side now the biggest issue
potentially for this bridge was the year of its construction
parliamentary approval was given for a tunnel the gwr tunnel 134 years on that still survives today
and so so the final nail in the coffin for this ill-fated seven bridge it was a night
it was thick fog two barges laden with fuel crashed into two of the center pillars of
the 21 spans of the bridge causing gas rupture the electric line was ruptured on the bridge
just 17 minutes over the final passenger train had crossed it and of course the
pillars crashed onto the boats and the boats exploded five crew were killed three survived
and the relic of which the relics of which can still be seen at low tide today
and of course that did indeed mark the final final nail in the coffin for this crossing
and here we are full circle back between the two crossings the m4 just down there
the m48 just ahead of me now the m48 bridge being built in 1966 and until that point if you
wanted to get your car here across the seven estuary you'd have to take the famous aust
to uh beechly ferry now that was after 1931 it would set you back around six to 12 shillings and
of course it would save your journey around about two and a half hours from going north
in 2018 perhaps one of the most significant things happened here with these most recent crossings
in december of that year they collected their last toll which meant that that was the first
time in around 800 years that it didn't cost you a penny to cross the seven estuary
so thanks for watching that little production took about two months to film and edit that one quite a
long one we've had on in the background for a while and if you like the type of things that
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