Avon

The River Avon or Avon is a river in or adjoining the counties of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire in the Midlands of England. It is also known as the Upper Avon, Warwickshire Avon or Shakespeare's Avon. more...

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The river has a total length of 154 km (96 miles). Avon is an anglicisation of the Welsh word for 'river' (spelled afon in Welsh)

Course

The source of the Avon is near the village of Naseby in Northamptonshire. For the first few miles of its length between Welford and the Dow Bridge on Watling Street, it forms the border between Northamptonshire and Leicestershire. On this section, it has been dammed to create Stanford Reservoir. It then flows in a generally west-southwesterly direction, not far north of the Cotswold Edge and through the Vale of Evesham, passing through the towns and villages of Welford, Rugby, Wolston, Leamington Spa, Warwick, Stratford-upon-Avon, Welford-on-Avon, Bidford-on-Avon, Evesham and Pershore, before it joins the River Severn at Tewkesbury.

The Avon's tributaries include the Rivers Leam, Stour, Sowe, Dene, Arrow, Swift, Alne, Isonbourn, Sherbourne and Swilgate as well as many minor streams and brooks.

Navigation

From Alveston weir (2 miles upstream of Stratford-upon-Avon) downstream to Tewkesbury and the River Severn, the river has been rendered navigable by the construction of locks and weirs. The Stratford-upon-Avon Canal links to the Avon through a lock in the park in front of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Navigation on the River Avon is restricted to boats with a maximum length of 72 ft (21.94 m), beam of 13 ft 6 in (4.11 m), height of 10 ft (3.04 m) and draught of 4 ft (1.18 m).

Traffic is now exclusively leisure oriented. Overnight moorings are available at Stratford-upon-Avon, Luddington, Welford-on-Avon, Barton, Bidford-on-Avon, Harvington, Offenham, Evesham, Craycombe, Wyre, Pershore, Defford, Comberton, Birlingham, Eckington, Strensham and Tewkesbury. There are boatyards at Stratford-upon-Avon, Welford-on-Avon, Barton, Bidford-on-Avon, Evesham and Tewkesbury.

The navigation works on the Avon were originally authorised by an Order in Council and Letters Patent of Charles I in 1635, and by 1641 it was reported that the river was navigable to within 4 miles of Warwick. It is often suggested that William Sandys (the 1635 grantee) constructed only flash locks (with a single barrier), and that Andrew Yarranton, who restored the river in the 1660s provided pound locks (with two pairs of mitred gates), but this is wrong. The evidence actually points to the reverse, namely that Yarranton put in about three navigation weirs (a type of flash lock) to overcome certain difficulties that remained; these were never adjacent to mills.

Read more at Wikipedia.org