Tewkesbury, and the Gloucestershire & Warwickshire Steam Railway

Saturday 21st October 2023

Tewkesbury

The Rivers Avon, Swilgate and Severn meet at Tewkesbury. With excessive rainfall from Storm Babet yesterday, they had overflowed and much of the lower-lying land surrounding Tewkesbury was flooded as a part of the local flood management plan.

We really liked visiting the town. It has a nice mix of old and new buildings with many independent retailers.

Many old, wonky Tudor buildings are squashed in between more modern ones:

The town is rightly proud of its abbey church, which is spectacular, but sadly for us, was closed for electrical work when we visited:

A fine Norman building, the abbey church was originally constructed in the 12th century as part of a Benedictine monastery. It is now the parish church.

A recurring theme in these blogs is stone medieval heads found mainly in structure of churches, particularly grotesques. These two seem to present portrait likenesses of two of the clergy, presumably of the original Benedictine abbey.

We definitely must return to see the inside of this building, when it reopens.

The Gloucestershire & Warwickshire Steam Railway

We had heard that a steam train was running on the local heritage railway line, near the the campsite.

We visited Toddington Station, where there are also the workshops for both steam and diesel engines.

We managed to see the last two trains of the day:

There is also a narrow gauge railway at Toddington (not operating on the day of our visit). This 3-wheeled lorry was parked outside:

Visiting with a Motorhome

Tewkesbury: There are a couple of car parks suitable for motorhomes in the town, one of which was underwater when we visited. We parked on Gloucester Road Car Park which was easily accessible and reasonably priced.

Toddington Station: The car park at the station is large and easily accessed. It serves both the main railway and the narrow gauge one.