Stourport on Severn: A history of the town and the area

Stourport-on-Severn is the only town in England that owes its existence to the building of canals. The proximity of the basins and the river, coupled with the Georgian housing and Worcestershire countryside, resulted in a picturesque town that quickly became a popular holiday attraction.

This fully illustrated book tells the story of the creation of James Brindley’s great waterway junction linking the canal network of the West Midlands to the highway of the River Severn. Industries grew up beside the busy canal basins, creating a boom town. Stourport-on-Severn had the largest tannery north of London, enormous ironworks, a power station supplying electricity to three counties, carpet factories exporting across the world and many other enterprises.

Much of the story is told by people who lived or worked in the town such as water gypsies, boat builders, shopkeepers, publicans, caravan site managers and local workers.

Centuries older than Stourport-on-Severn, the nearby villages of Areley Kings, Hartlebury, Astley and Shrawley reveal in these pages their fascinating histories, together with the more recent arrival of Wilden, where the family of three-times Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin had a large iron works.

**back in print due to popular demand!**