Sims Bridge to Sellars Bridge Walk

Two miles long, it can be done as a continuation of the Gloucester Docks to Sims walk, which can be found on the Canal and River Trust website. However, it makes a pleasant walk in its own right, starting, if you prefer at the Sellars Bridge end, where a large car park can be found at the Pilot Inn. As well as beautiful scenery, this walk offers historical interest and maintains a very rural feel even though the bustling city centre is less than three miles away.

This section retains the good concrete surface that extends from the centre of Gloucester, so still provides an accessible path for the less able or as an excellent cycle route.  

Canal: Gloucester to Sharpness

Start: Sims Bridge, Sims Lane, Quedgeley, Gloucester, GL2 3NJ. OS Grid ref: SO 80939 15548

Finish: The Pilot Inn, Sellars Rd, Hardwicke, Gloucester GL2 4QD OS Grid ref: SO 79651 13505 (car parking available here)

Route instructions

1. The walk starts from Sims Bridge, which can be found at the end of Sims Lane in Quedgeley. Please note that there is no car parking at this end of the walk. Sims Bridge is one of a number of electrically operated bridges on the canal, being controlled by the Bridge Keeper from within the hut.

2. From here it is a short walk down the towpath to Rea Bridge. The two bridges are so close that both are often managed by the same Bridge Keeper, cycling between them, They have to ride fast to  overtake the boat they have just let through the one bridge so as to let them through the next bridge. Rea Bridge is one of five manual bridges that are operated by hand using the black hand winding mechanism shown in this photograph. Opening the bridge by the manual mechanism and cycling between the two bridges can be quite a physically demanding job on a busy summer’s day.

3. Boats can only enter or exit the canal at Sharpness at high tide, which occurs twice every twenty four hours. In the 1840s the canal was operating both day and night to utilise both of the tides. The canal company built a number of cottages to the same design alongside many of the bridges where local accommodation was not otherwise available.

4. From Rea Bridge there is now a long tranquil stretch of canal with trees lining the opposite bank. This makes for a beautiful walk in the autumn sunshine with the leaves beginning to turn.

5. Approximately ½ mile after Rea Bridge you will see a milepost which shows distance between the canal’s end points (Gloucester & Sharpness

6. When the canal was first opened in 1827 ships were drawn by horse, each ship was accompanied by a person walking along the towpath who was known as a “Hobbler”. Their job was to take a rope from the ship and put it around one of these checking posts to help control the movement of the vessel. These white posts are now often buried in the undergrowth on the far side of the towpath from the canal.

7. Shortly before Sellars bridge you will see a wharf on the far bank of the canal, with a new housing development behind. This is all that is left of the Quedgeley Petroleum Depot, developed by Shell-Mex and BP in 1960. From here various products including petrol, diesel & heavy oil were delivered by road tankers to customers within a twenty-five-mile radius.

8. Here widening of the canal was carried out, to enable the larger tankers to be able to turn around at the wharf. Before this modification, tankers had to continue a further three miles onwards to the docks before they were able to turn around.

9. Shortly after the wharf you will come to Sellars Bridge and the end of this walk. Once you reach the bridge turn left to cross over the canal and reach the Pilot Inn for the option of refreshments. It is a short walk past the Pilot to reach Elmgrove Road West bus stop from where it is possible to catch a no. 12 bus back to the city centre.