Paddle the Severn

Britain's longest river offers so much to canoeists, kayakers and paddleboarders. Paddlers can choose between the river's diverse but always attractive and engaging surroundings; Cambrian Mountains white water, North Shropshire Plain meanders, deep Midlands valleys, broad Worcestershire floodplains, expanses of estuarine sandflats. The Severn is clean, green and lush, its ecosystems healthier than they have been in centuries; it is remarkably quiet and free of traffic; and finally, it is untamed and free-flowing with white water along its length, only engineered in its final freshwater stretches. Folk from prehistoric times onwards have left traces accessible to paddlers, from cathedrals and castles to quaysides and canals. Most famously, Ironbridge 'the cradle of the Industrial Revolution'.