Gloucester Docks

The most inland port in the country, some 40 miles from the coast, Gloucester Docks provided a gateway for international trade. The main basin is the terminus of the 16-mile long Gloucester to Sharpness canal, opened in 1827 to allow sea going ships to bypass a tortuous winding stretch of the River Severn and to offload their cargoes onto barges. It would have been continually busy with steam ships, narrowboats and sailing boats. 

Early imports included corn from Ireland and the Continent, timber from the Baltic and North America, and wines and spirits from Portugal and France. The main export was salt which was brought down the river from Worcestershire.

To cope with all this activity, warehouses were built around the Main Basin, an earlier dry dock was enlarged, and an engine house was built to augment the canal's water supply by pumping from the River Severn. A standard gauge railway was built in the 1840s; these lines were increasingly used to distribute imports to the Midlands in competition with the river and canal route.

During later decades of the 20th century, neglect set in, and nowerdays mainly pleasure boats operate within the docks. The docks has featured in several films and TV series such as The Onedin Line. But it is a far cry from the hustle and bustle of a working dockside, where tall ships came from as far as the Americas and the Black Sea.

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