The Aust Ferry was a ferry service that operated across the River Severn in Gloucestershire, England. It ran between the village of Aust in England and the village of Beachley, in Gloucestershire but near Chepstow in Wales.
It was generally known as the Beachley Ferry on the Welsh side, and the Aust Ferry on the Bristol side. Before the Severn Bridge was opened in 1966, it was the only crossing of the estuary for road traffic between the West Country and South Wales below Gloucester, thus allowing cars to avoid a 60 mile road journey.
The passage of the Severn between Aust and Beachley was probably in use from antiquity and was long the chief route between south west England and Wales. It was recorded in the 12th century when the de Clares, lords of Tidenham, granted quittance of the passage to the monks of Tintern, and was evidently much used in 1405 when great numbers of the English and Welsh were said to resort to the nearby chapel of St. Twrog. The manor of Tidenham retained rights over the passage, and received rents from the parishes of Aust and Beachley, until the 19th century.
The journey, a distance of over a mile at a point where the tides run swiftly, was a dangerous one, and its reputation, the roughness of the water, and the smallness of the boats deterred Daniel Defoe from making the crossing from the Aust side early in the 18th century. He referred to it as an ugly, dangerous, and very inconvenient ferry. By that time, ferry crossings from the New Passage, between Redwick near Pilning and Sudbrook on the Welsh side, rivalled the Aust passage, which became known as the Old Passage.
In 1825 a new era opened with the formation of the Old Passage Ferry Association, sponsored by the Duke of Beaufort, as lord of Tidenham. The company built new stone piers on both banks, and commissioned a steamboat which began to ply in 1827, with a second one five years later, although sailing boats also continued to be used. By virtue of these improvements the company achieved the transfer of most of the cross-Severn mail routes from the rival New Passage. However, the passage remained dangerous. The Beachley-Aust ferry was lost with all hands on 1 September 1839. The same thing happened on 12 March 1844; the master, James Whitchurch was the son of the captain lost in 1839.
The advent of railways, in particular the opening of the South Wales railway in 1852 and then the Severn tunnel in 1886, brought a sharp decrease in traffic; both the steamboats were scrapped by 1860 and eventually the service was closed altogether.
The ferry gained a new lease of life, however, with the growth of motor traffic, and a service was re-opened in 1926. Between 1931 and 1966 a ferry service was operated by Enoch Williams of the Old Passage Severn Ferry Company Ltd. Initially this was only able to transport passengers with bicycles and motorbikes, but by 1934 the Severn Queen was launched as a car ferry. Each ferry was able to carry just 17 cars. The last ferry crossing occurred the day before the first Severn Bridge opened.
The idea of a bridge across the Severn had been a dream for 1,900 years but it took modern techniques to solve the problems. Until the queen opened the bridge on 8th September, 1966, the only ways to get from the west of England to South Wales by road was by taking a 50-mile detour around Gloucester or face a long wait to board a ferry. By the 1960's the Beachley-Aust ferry was being swamped. The largest of the three ferries carried just 17 vehicles! Railway passengers have avoided the long detour via Gloucester since the Great Western Railway opened their Severn Tunnel in 1886.
The first designs for a bridge over the River Severn were submitted as early as 1845 but no attempt was made to use them. The task of building the bridge to a modern design was given to the Associated Bridge Builders consortium which had previously built the Forth Bridge in Scotland. Work on the 90,000 ton anchorage and foundations began in 1961.
The towers are 455 feet (137m) high and comprise of 55ft 6in (17m) sections erected using a climbing structure which could lift itself up each section in around six hours.
The bridge was designed to withstand winds of 100mph but wind was the biggest obstacle in the construction. Acceptable wind speeds dropped as the towers grew and in the latter stages winds of 10mph could stop work.
The 60 feet (18m) long deck sections, 75 feet (23m) wide and 10 feet (3m) deep, were floated out from the yards of Fairfield Mabey and winched into position. The road surface is 38,000 square yards of hand-laid mastic asphalt.
The bridge was built five years four months, and the complex, including the crossing of the Wye and motorway links, cost a total of £16m, compared with a projected £238m for the second crossing built a couple of miles downstream and opened spring 1996.
When the bridge opened, its span was the seventh largest in the world. In the first full year of operation 6 million vehicles used it, and today an average of 50,000 vehicles a day use it. (3 times the first-year volume!) The highest daily usage was on 26th May, 1989, when 76,182 vehicles crossed it. Although high winds often close the bridge to high-sided vehicles, until the end of 1991 it had been completely closed on just 11 occasions.
Dylan was on his way to south Wales following a gig in Bristol. The following day, as he set off in the rain for his next gig in Cardiff, the boos were still ringing in his ears. So it's hardly surprising he looked a bit moody as he waited for the ferry.
Barry Feinstein has rediscoverd the original proof sheet from that day in 1966. Along with the cover shot are several others which have not been seen for 40 years. It's possible they could now end up exhibited in the proposed Severn Princess ferry museum. You can see the newly completed Severn Bridge visible in the distance - it was opened by the Queen in September that year.
Many famous people used the ferry service inc The Beatles and Tom Jones took the ferry between Wales and England.
In the movie Star Wars (1977), 'the sounds of the lasers were made by striking one of the suspension wires of the original Severn Bridge. The longer ones were used for the ships while the shorter ones were used for the hand guns.'
For the rock band Marillion's album Brave (1994), singer Steve Hogarth used a concept that was inspired by a radio broadcast from the Bristol Police. Quoting Steve Hogarth: 'The police had picked up a young woman wandering on the Severn Bridge who refused or was unable to speak to them. In desperation the appeal was broadcast to the general public in an attempt to discover her identity.' Hogarth heard it on the radio, and several years later it inspired him while he and the band were working on what was to become the Brave album.
On 1 February 1995, Richey James Edwards, the former guitarist and key lyricist for the Welsh based rock band Manic Street Preachers disappeared and was never seen again. Though it has been debated whether or not the musician, who had a well-documented history of self-harm, took his life, his car was found several days later in a motorway service station near the Severn Bridge, which has since its construction acquired notoriety for being a suicide spot.
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