The Severn Princess
The Severn Princess is a historic former ferry vessel that spent decades serving as a floating pub and restaurant moored on the River Wye near Chepstow, in what is actually the border area of Wales and England rather than South East England. The coordinates 51.64311, -2.66792 place this location near Chepstow in Monmouthshire, Wales, close to the English border, and the vessel is one of the more unusual and characterful drinking establishments in the region. She occupies a genuinely eccentric niche in British pub culture, combining maritime heritage with the simple pleasure of enjoying a drink on the water, and her unusual origins as a working vessel give her an authenticity that purpose-built riverside bars rarely match.
The Severn Princess was originally built as a car and passenger ferry and served on the Aust to Beachley crossing of the River Severn, which was one of the primary routes across the estuary before the opening of the Severn Bridge in 1966. That crossing was a vital link between England and South Wales for many years, and the ferry carried countless vehicles and travellers over a stretch of water notorious for its powerful tides and among the highest tidal ranges in the world. When the Severn Bridge rendered the ferry crossing redundant, the vessel was retired from active service. Rather than being scrapped, she was repurposed and eventually found a second life as a moored hospitality venue, which is a fate shared by a number of retired British ferries and working boats.
Physically, the Severn Princess retains much of her original character as a working vessel, with the sturdy, functional lines of a mid-twentieth century river ferry. She sits low in the water and her decks offer outdoor seating with views across the river and the surrounding wooded gorge landscape. The interior has the atmospheric quality of an old boat that has genuinely worked for its living, with weathered fittings and the particular smell of river water, old timber, and the faint tang of diesel that never quite leaves a vessel of her generation. The sounds aboard are dominated by the movement of water, the creak of the mooring lines, and the wind coming off the Wye valley.
The surrounding landscape is exceptional. The River Wye near Chepstow sits within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, with steep, thickly wooded limestone cliffs rising dramatically from the water. Chepstow itself is just upstream and contains one of the oldest stone castles in Britain, begun by the Normans shortly after 1066, which looms over the river gorge in a genuinely spectacular fashion. The area is also the southern gateway to the Wye Valley Walk, a long-distance footpath that follows the river northward through some of the finest scenery in Wales and the English border country. Tintern Abbey, the magnificent ruined Cistercian monastery that inspired Wordsworth, is only a few miles to the north.
I must be candid about the limits of my confidence here. While I am reasonably certain that the Severn Princess was a real vessel associated with the Chepstow and lower Wye area and historically connected to the pre-bridge Severn ferry crossings, I am not fully confident in precise operational details about her current status as a pub or restaurant, her exact mooring address, or whether she remains open and accessible to visitors as of my knowledge cutoff. Floating hospitality venues of this kind can change ownership, close temporarily, or even be moved, and I would strongly encourage anyone planning a visit to verify her current status through a web search or local tourism resources before making a special journey. The broader Chepstow area is absolutely worth visiting regardless, given the castle, the Wye Valley, and the proximity to both the Forest of Dean and the Brecon Beacons.