Welsh Journals

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The River Trade and Craft of Montgomeryshire and its Borders. (Continued from Vol. XLIIL, p. 46). By A. STANLEY DAVIES. THE SEVERN CORACLE. The following interview with the only surviving coracle fisher- man on the Upper Severn explains both the manufacture of the Severn type of coracle, and the uses to which it was put. Mr. Phillips and his family fished both above and below Pool Quay weir. The next pair of coracles was at Criggion, opposite Llandrinio Bridge .and was owned by Mr. Weston and Mr. Lowndes; the latter was a game-keeper for Valentine Vickers, Esq., owner of the Breidden Forest. Mr. Samuel Phillips, aged 78, of The Boat House, Leighton Bridge, Welshpool, states: I am a native of Trewern, a Severn-side township, opposite Pool Quay, at the foot of the Breiddens, and my father and grandfather lived there before me. I was following the tail of a plough or fishing with my father with the coracle, when I ought to have been in school. My grandfather, father and I all made and used coracles on the Severn. We used two coracles, one under each bank of the river, with a net in between to catch salmon. We netted the salmon in February, and sold them to Shrewsbury fishmongers. Being on the market so early in the season we had no difficulty in selling all we could catch. It was very cold work on the river at a that time of year, often in hard frost. J In 1915 I came to Leighton to this house. I heard that there was a coracle at Shrawardine Castle, on the Severn above Shrewsbury, which the owner could not manage, so I bought it and brought it here. When it wore out in 1918, I made one myself in the way my father had taught me. The Shrawardine coracle was the same pattern as I was taught to make. I Since salmon netting was prohibited in 1890, I have used the coracle for setting night-lines, the licence for which was ten shillings a year but now even that is prohibited. The coracle is also useful,