Memory Lane The Arlingham to Newnham Road Bridge 1949
“Uncle Harry is going to build a Bridge”
“Oh yes, where’s that in his garden?”
“No across the river at the Passage…all the way across to Newnham.”
“Harry and who’s army?”
“Well Lou Greenway from next door and a couple of his boys….he’s got his boat, a Jones Crane and a fresh tin of St. Bruno Flake Ready Rubbed pipe tobacco”
Captain Harry Aldridge lived at Greenhaye Arlingham and was educated at Arlingham School, he probably left at fourteen which was the term before they did the nine times table. He became a Captain because his father Lewis Aldridge put him in charge of one of his boats and he had bought a regulation Captain’s Breton cap from a boat store in Watchet.
His bridge building qualifications or any qualifications were Zilch, Zero, None, Nothing .
Enoch Williams was a ferrymaster, he owned and operated the Old Passage Severn Ferry Company Limited. This ferry carried cars and light commercials on a roll on roll off ferry between Beachley and Aust downstream on the River Severn. In 1939 Enoch announce that he had bought the ferry rights at Newnham and had a proposal to build a chain ferry between Newnham and Arlingham. That year an Austrian house painter Adolf Hitler intervened and any plans were put on hold.
Late into the war the Ministry realised the need for floating airfields to progress the battle in the Far East. To achieve this a series of interconnecting octagonal tanks were built and tested at Stranraer under the code LILY but never used by then as the war had ended.
Williams saw the possibility to use these surplus tanks for the Arlingham to Newnham crossing, bought them and started to deliver them to site.
Harry and his team set to work with initial success. I think most villagers visited the site on almost a daily basis and I can remember going there whenever I was in the village. After a few months the pontoons were one third of the way across the river when disaster struck. With a fast tide running the ground anchors failed and a large section became detached. Being at Priding at the time I remember them strollng past us and out of sight, ending up on Longney Sands. Sadly the project was abandoned from that moment on.
Great support to Williams had been given by the Red and White Bus company who operated most of the forest buses and had aspirations on the Stroud Valleys. They also ran three double deckers every day from Lydney, Coleford and Cinderford to RAF Quedgeley. A new crossing would give them considerably more choices.
The remaining tanks were slowly removed with a couple being used by the local farmers as churn stands.
A worthy project embarked on by very worthy people with ambition. Today such a project would need a ten million pound feasibility study a six million pound tidal study, a twelve million pound environmental assessment, the project costing eighty million to construct with a budget overrun.
For Enoch Williams sadly he lost twenty thousand pounds on the adventure.