H4 History of Inland Transport 



one foot and a half broad on each side of the river for drawing 

 their boats, " of late certain covetous persons " had " inter- 

 rupted " those so using the said paths, " taking of them fines 

 and bottles of wine," and the Act imposed a penalty 

 of forty shillings on anyone attempting to enforce such 

 tolls, except as regards the reasonable recompense which the 

 riparian owners could claim. This enactment seems to have 

 been due to the action of local officials in Worcester, Gloucester 

 and other places on the river in seeking, as told in Nash's 

 " History and Antiquities of Worcestershire " (1781), to 

 raise revenue for their cities or towns by taxing traders who 

 used the Severn for the transport of their commodities. 



The importance of the Severn, from the point of view of trade 

 and commerce, in the middle of the sixteenth century, is 

 suggested by what William Harrison wrote of it in his 

 " Description of the Sauerne " (1577) : "As the said stream, 

 in length of course, bountie of water, and depth of chanell 

 commeth farre behind the Thames, so for other commodities, 

 as trade of merchandize, plentie of cariage ... it is nothing 

 at all inferiour to or second to the same." 



One reason for the early commercial prosperity of the Severn 

 towns was the important trade in flannels which they carried 

 on with Wales ; though the industry was, also, considerably 

 developed in the Severn counties themselves. Made mostly 

 in the farm-houses and cottages of Montgomeryshire, Merion- 

 ethshire and Denbighshire, before the days of factories, the 

 flannels and webs were taken by the makers to the fortnightly 

 market at Welshpool. This was a convenient centre for the 

 drapers from Shrewsbury, who, journeying thither along the 

 Severn, would, at one time, buy up the entire stock ; though 

 later on they had competitors in the traders from Wrexham 

 and other places. Although carried on only as a domestic 

 industry, the making of these Welsh flannels underwent 

 considerable expansion, Archdeacon Joseph Plymley saying, 

 in his " General View of the Agriculture of Salop," published 

 in 1803, " The manufacture in Wales by means of jennies 

 introduced into farm-houses and other private houses is four 

 times as great, I am told, as it was twenty years ago." 



At Shrewsbury the wares thus brought down the Severn 

 from Wales were purchased mostly by merchants from London 

 who either sent them to Continental markets or else consigned 



