Severn Beach is a village on the mouth of the river Severn in South Gloucestershire, England. A riverside footpath, which is part of the Severn Way, leads beneath the Second Severn Crossing bridge. The eastern portal of the Severn Tunnel lies on the outskirts of the village.
Severn Beach used to have a popular swimming pool which has been demolished in favour of an open space and some housing. The BBC1 TV drama Shoestring once filmed at the Blue Lagoon Swimming Pool.
Despite being next to the motorway, residents have to travel several miles before they can access either bridge. Since there is no motorway junction at the village, Severn Beach remains free of heavy traffic.
Severn Beach only existed as a farm until Great Western Railway decided to link Pilning and Avonmouth in 1900. The railway saw the possibilities of development now that trains passed through the area and in 1922 the village was created as a seaside resort with a swimming pool called the "Blue Lagoon", a boating lake and the Beach Comber Strip Club mostly by local entrepreneur Robert Stride. Many people came from nearby Bristol because Severn Beach had less strict licensing laws.
Much has changed in Severn Beach in recent years. Many of the shops have closed. However, the Post Office, Convenience Store and Bakery still trade. The village pub was demolished to make way for housing, and the village, like most villages around Bristol, is moving towards "commuter town" status, with many people using its rail and road links to work elsewhere.
Adge Cutler of The Wurzels wrote a song called "Aloha Severn Beach".
Famous quotes containing the words severn and/or beach:
“On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble;
His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
And thick on Severn snow the leaves.”
—A.E. (Alfred Edward)
“The seashore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world. It is even a trivial place. The waves forever rolling to the land are too far-traveled and untamable to be familiar. Creeping along the endless beach amid the sun-squall and the foam, it occurs to us that we, too, are the product of sea-slime.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)