Take Me To the River

I've written a bit about the local place names recently, catch up here. The name Harvington (where I live) is derived from old words for army, ford and village (settlement or farm). Thing is, the mighty Avon sort of rushes by a bit and it is over a mile away so it is hard to imagine anyone wandering across.

But on our Sunday afternoon constitutional today we walked down to the river and the low vegetation at this time of year enabled us to get right down to the bank. And there we discovered (OK, noticed) that there is an underwater paved surface before the weir. You can see in the photo a track running down to it on the far bank by the blue car, which stopped helpfully. There is a corresponding track where I was standing. The ford is roughly defined by the area where the water ripples.

Once over it is another mile to the oldest part of the village where church, pub and houses named after former tradespeople are situated.

But yes, the story makes sense. Here be a place where an army could once have crossed a river. It is probably the case that the human-made ford created the weir rather than vice-versa. It is ironic that there now has to be a lock to enable craft to get past this point. It feels like a metaphor for water travel giving way to road travel. Since the Harvington by-pass has been by-passed (A46 Stratford to Evesham section) this story may well run and run.