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:
“Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“They will tell you tough stories of sharks all over the Cape, which I do not presume to doubt utterly,—how they will sometimes upset a boat, or tear it in pieces, to get at the man in it. I can easily believe in the undertow, but I have no doubt that one shark in a dozen years is enough to keep up the reputation of a beach a hundred miles long.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)