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LORD WINDSOR, who had local associations and purchased the navigation in 1664, was much interested in all such projects, including an abortive scheme to make the river Salwarpe navigable for the benefit of the Droitwich salt trade. On 7th November, 1664, he entrusted to Andrew Yarranton, together with Richard Turton, Richard Bartlett and Nicholas Baker, the responsibility of making the upper Avon navigable from Evesham to Stratford, before 8th September, 1666. They did so, making six sluices. In 1667 Yarranton, who has been described as the first English economist, dedicated the first part of his book, England's Improvement by Land and Sea, to Lord Windsor, thanking him for "the great Incouragement your Lordship hath been pleased to afford me, in those indefatigable Pains you have taken in the survey of Several rivers, and contriving with me effectually which way these might be rendered so far Navigable, that the Publick might thereby receive a general Advantage."
Lord Windsor granted Yarranton and the others two-thirds of the Upper Navigation, but afterwards repurchased some shares, so that he owned seven-fifteenths. He had settled his rights in the Avon on his wife Ursula, to whom they were worth £400 per annum. After her death the navigation of the lower river up to Evesham became permanently separated from that of the upper river, as the former descended to Lord Windsor's second son, and his rights in the latter to the youngest. The Upper Navigation is now unusuable, and it must always have been difficult to keep the channel clear. It is not known when it fell into disuse.
It is unfortunate that we know so little about how the navigation worked. Daniel Defoe mentions it in his Tour through the Islands of Great Britain, first published in 1724-6. "The navigation of the river Avon," he says, "is an exceeding advantage to all this part of the country, and also the commerce of the city of Bristol. For by this river they drive a very great trade for sugar, oil, wine, tobacco, iron, lead, and, in a word, all heavy goods, which are usually carried by water almost as far as Warwick; and, in return, the corn, and especially cheese, are carried back from Gloucestershire and Warwickshire to Bristol; for Gloucester cheese is excellent of its kind, and this county drives a great trade in it."
Elizabeth Elstob's account, which has already been mentioned, also tells of the great benefits which have been brought to the Vale of Evesham, emphasising particularly that where hitherto firing was lacking, now many have coals delivered at their doors. It is clear that the navigation was flourishing and much used. George Perry, writing on the navigation of the Severn in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1758, states that of 376 vessels on the Severn in May 1756, eighteen belonged to eight owners at Tewkesbury, and two to one owner at Evesham. The latter was probably the Windsor family, owner of the Lower Navigation.
In 1760 George Perrort, a baron of the Exchequer, purchased the Lower Navigation out of Chancery. He also purchased the remainder of the lease of the manor of Fladbury from the daughters of Other Windsor, Lord Windsor's grandson. Of an old Worcestershire family, which had lived in Yorkshire for several generations, he settled at Pershore, "where his social and other amicable qualities rendered him beloved by all that knew him." By 1793 his family had built and were living at Craycombe House in the Parish of Fladbury. The judge George, his nephew George Perrott, and that nephew's son George Wigley Perrott acquired much land and became influential in the village. The first George was largely responsible for initiating and carrying through the Enclosure Act of 1783.
When the navigation passed into the hands of the Perrort family it was very prosperous, probably more prosperous than at any other time. The demand for coal and goods of every sort was increasing, while canals and railways did not yet exist to compete with river navigation. But such prosperity was short-lived, and in 1793 because "the said navigation of the River Avon hath been gradually improving for 30 years past, and is now let on lease, whereof two years or thereabouts are now unexpired, at the rent of £1,227 per annum, and would now sell to Advantage, but on account of the Navigations that have already taken place, and other Navigations which are still projecting, the value of such Navigation is become precarious, and is attended with a Risque which may be dangerous to an individual proprietor"; George Perrott the nephew was proposing an Act to vest the Navigation in trustees and sell it. This was done, though most of the shares remained in the family.
The "navigations which had afready taken place" were the canals built by Brindley in the Midlands during the 'sixties and 'seventies of the eighteenth century-the Coventry Canal, the Birmingham Canal, and the Droitwich Canal-but the other "still projecting" was the Birmingham tQ Worcester Canal, which constituted a far more serious threat to the Avon Navigation. The Act authorising it was passed in 1793, and the undertakers were obliged to agree to pay £400 per annum as compensation to the owners of the Lower Avon Navigation, a sum which is still paid by the Sharpness Dock Co., which had acquired the Worcester and Birmingham Canal. Both these undertakings have now been nationalised.
The Perrott property and navigation rights, divided and subdivided, were heavily mortgaged during the nineteenth century, leased in part, and finally sold. In 1930 the navigation rights came into the hands of their present owners, the Lower Avon Navigation Company.
We can get some idea of what the "navigation" consisted of in the early nineteenth century from a lease of 1838, granting lands in Fladbury to John Bedford. It included all the navigation and profits of navigation and also all "storehouses sluices locks wears turnpikes pounds for water floodgates dams bankes pounds boats lighters weights implements and tackle cranes wharfs ways passages and footrails on upon and belonging to or used within the said River of Avon. And the said navigation thereupon together with all the tolls royalties rents profits commodities advantages and oppurtenances whatsoever to the said Navigation and passage belonging or appertaining, and also all that perpetual Annuity or yearly sum of £400 already referred to."
Today the navigation is almost derelict and is used commercially to a very limited extent only between Tewkesbury and Pershore.
2. THE VILLAGE OF FLADBURY (Back to top)
Few events of importance have taken place in Fladbury since William Sandys built the navigation. Charles I passed through the village in 1644, a fortnight after the Parliamentary troops under Sir William Waller had visited it and had broken glass in the parish church. The most interesting figure connected with the village after this was William Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph and afterwards of Worcester. He was one of the seven bishops who were committed to the Tower in 1688 for signing a petition asking for the recall of the second Declaration of Indulgence, and who were afterwards acquitted of the charge of publishing a seditious libel against the King. The acquittal was immensely popular and Lloyd had to be rescued from the crowds in Palace Yard, who were kissing his garments. In his later years Lloyd came to consider himself as one of the prophets, and was given to making apocalyptic prognostications of political events in Europe.
His son, also William, was Rector of Fladbury from 15th August, 1713, to 9th November, 1719, when he died at the age of 45. He was also chancellor of the diocese of Worcester. A cultivated man, whose beautiful hand can be identified in the parish registers, he built the present large rectory. He published in 1700 a folio volume called Series Chronologiea Olympiadum, Pythiadem, Isthmiadum, Nemeadum, etc., but it is said to have been largely written by his father, a voluminous author. When the bishop died in 1717 he was buried at Fladbury, and there is an imposing memorial to him in the chancel of the church.
There is a small but beautifully lettered commemoration stone in the south aisle of the church, dated 1609, that is of interest. It commemorates in Latin the fact that George Darby was judged worthy of the cognomen "Arborator" (tree-planter). The Darby family at one time occupied a house in Broadway Lane on ground called the Parks, where in the 1870's there were still a number of very old pear trees. The monument indicates the special interest in tree culture taken in this district, now famous for its orchards, even in the early seventeenth century.
The passage of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw changes in the face of Fladbury as the gentry built larger houses in the new styles. There were other developments; the poor became less poverty-stricken and the population increased. But even the arrival of the railway did little to affect the character of the village; it remained a predominantly agricultural community.
Fladbury is today the centre of an active and progressive market-gardening district. The mills and the river Avon, so long the moving life-blood of the village, have become but tranquil and picturesque reminders of the activities of the past, a valued heritage appreciated by townsmen and countrymen alike.
