The Development of the Severn Valley in the Neighbourhood of Iron-Bridge and Bridgnorth

Abstract

The late Prof. Charles Lapworth inspired me with a desire to test the validity of his hypothesis, put forward as long ago as 1898, that the Upper Severn was added to the Lower Severn as a result of the impounding of a glacial lake in Shropshire and Cheshire. The lake, according to the hypothesis, rose until it flowed out over the former watershed between the Shropshire plain (which originally had drained to the Dee or the Mersey) and the headwaters of a tributary of the Worcestershire Stour.