Page:Walker (1888) The Severn Tunnel.djvu/40

Rh for a distance of nearly 20 miles, measured along the winding course of the stream.

At the point where the Wye joins the Severn the estuary becomes at once two miles wide, and there is a depth of 70 feet at low water in the deep water-channel known as the Shoots; and about two miles below the Old Passage are the piers, built by the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway Company, where passengers travelling by the trains from Bristol to South Wales used to cross the river by steamboats. This railway and the piers are the property of the Great Western Railway Company, and, considering the difficulties encountered in the passage, a very considerable traffic was carried by the steamboats. Immediately alongside the present piers are the remains of the old wharves and roads by which the coach passengers in the old days were brought over the beach and put on board the ferry barges.

Fifty years ago this was the only route by which travellers from Bristol or Bath could reach South Wales, except by sea.

About half a mile below the ‘Black Rock Pier,’ on the western side of the river, on a point of land which has been saved to a great extent from the wasting influences of the sea by the hardness of the strata of which it is composed, are the remains of a Roman camp. Rather more than half the camp has been washed away by the waves, but the two sides which remain are still very perfect. Some