THE AVON 
Navigation on the Avon is rooted in history Mankind had always exploited rivers as a way of moving heavy loads more easily than overland - until the railways came. The Avon was no exception. 
Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, during the reign of Henry VI in the 15th century, urged that the Avon be made navigable from the Severn at Tewkesbury to Warwick, proclaiming "...this dede done had been a pleasant syght of the vessels coming and makying to Warewick and the countrey, and a grate profit to the Lord is in the carriage of there wyns and odre stuff from Bristow by watre, and caused merchands the better willyd to dwell in the town." 
But the Earl's vision remained unrealised for 200 years, till Charles I in 1635 "sitting in Councell empowered William Sandys of Flatbury to make the River Avon passable for boats of reasonable burthen from Severn (nere Tewxbury) through the Counties of Worcester, Gloucester, and Warwicke unto or near the Citty of Coventry." 
By 1639, the navigation was completed to Stratford - an astonishing achievement for the age - eased by the King's appointment of commissioners to deal with difficult landowners, as the project was seen as "advantageous to the publiq". 
In 1641, Captain John Taylor reported that the Avon was navigable to within four miles of Warwick. (A road running down to the river in Barford is evidence that there could well have been a wharf there.) In the early 18th century Daniel Defoe reported "many goods carried by water almost to Warwick" and at the passing of the Avon Navigation Act in 1751, about 400 30-ton barges used the river annually. 
The construction of the Stratford canal, linking with the Birmingham-Worcester canal at Kings Norton, and subsequently with the Grand Union canal at Lapworth, placed Stratford at the fulcrum of a freight transit network, and more wharves and warehouses were developed in the town. 
Prosperity was relatively short lived. For a time Statford was served by the Avon Navigation, the Stratford and Moreton Tramway, the Stratford Canal and two railway lines. Gradually the river trade declined, and through navigation was impossible by the 1870's. Trade on the canal continued, but declined steadily, ending before the second world war. Several attempts were made by local bodies to arrest the decline. In 1920 the Ministry of Transport produced a scheme to take 100-ton barges from Tewkesbury to Warwick, and thence by the Grand Union canal to the Thames. Although the Grand Union was widened to facilitate this, sadly no action took place on the Avon. 
Come 1946, the South Stratford Canal lay derelict, and the Avon remained just navigable downstream of Pershore. Navigations were considered unimportant -just historical relics. 
In 1950, the Inland Waterways Association (IWA) formed the Lower Avon Navigation Trust which with Douglas Barwell as chairman worked tirelessly for fourteen years, restoring the navigation from Tewkesbury to Evesham.