Rhydd Ferry
by
H W Gwilliam
The name Rhydd comes from the Welsh word rhyd, meaning a ford or a ferry. The ferrry house still stands but
greatly altered. It is not known when the ferry was last worked, but it was said to have worked up to the 1914
War. On the Malvern side, there are two very good roads converging at Rhydd Green and a good road down to
the Rhydd and the river but, again, on the east bank, only a footpath to Clifton, though it looks as if there was
once a road to Sheepcot, where a good road runs to Severn Stoke. The ford at the Rhydd is thought to have
been one of the prehistoric crossings of the Severn on a route to the hill camps on the Malverns. As at Clevelode,
it was a distributing point for river-borne coal and bricks for Malvern Wells and Great Malvern in the 19th
century.
Navigation at the rock bar of the Rhydd was a hazardous operation at low water, for the trows could not sail
over, and it was necessary to get horses to haul the vessel over, or the owners were obliged to double the men
by using two companies of hauliers. A channel was blasted in the rock bar but, when a strong tide was running,
it was very dangerous. The trow ‘Prince’ struck the bar in 1847, and went down.
Copyright ©
H W Gwilliam
1982
Other pages in WHE
Severn Ferries and Fords in Worcestershire
Worcestershire History Encyclopaedia