The Lymington River drains part of the

New Forest The New Forest is one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in Southern England, covering southwest Hampshire and southeast Wiltshire. It was proclaimed a royal forest by William the Conqueror, fea ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

in southern England. Numerous headwaters to the west of Lyndhurst give rise to the river, including Highland Water, Bratley Water and Fletchers Water. From

Brockenhurst Brockenhurst is the largest village by population within the New Forest in Hampshire, England. The nearest city is Southampton some to the North East, while Bournemouth is also nearby, South West. Surrounding towns and villages include Beaul ...

the river runs southwards to the

Solent The Solent ( ) is a strait between the Isle of Wight and Great Britain. It is about long and varies in width between , although the Hurst Spit which projects into the Solent narrows the sea crossing between Hurst Castle and Colwell Bay t ...

Lymington Lymington is a port town on the west bank of the Lymington River on the Solent, in the New Forest district of Hampshire, England. It faces Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, to which there is a car ferry service operated by Wightlink. It is within the ...

. Highland Water rises north of the Ocknell Inclosure () and flows for to Bolderford Bridge () where it meets Ober Water. From there, it is known as the Lymington River and flows for a further to ().

History

In 1731 a merchant navy captain, Captain Cross, constructed a causeway and bridge across the estuary to the north of

.Peter Bruce (2001) Solent Hazards, page 63 He built

toll house A tollhouse or toll house is a building with accommodation for a toll collector, beside a tollgate on a toll road, canal, or toll bridge. History Many tollhouses were built by turnpike trusts in England, Wales and Scotland during the 18th an ...

s and charged travellers using his causeway, more than a mile south of the existing bridge at

Boldre Boldre is a village and civil parish in the New Forest district of Hampshire, England. It is in the south of the New Forest National Park, above the broadening (estuary) of the Lymington River, two miles (3 km) north of Lymington. In the 2 ...

.Jude James (2013) ''Lymington Through Time'' This impedes the river and further silted up Lymington harbour, losing its minor shipping rapidly. Lymington Corporation pursued the matter in court and lost their case. In 1795 the mud building up in the estuary "has rendered it already very narrow; and will probably in a few years, so completely choke it up, as to make it unnavigable by any ships of considerable burden." The causeway was taken over by the regional rail firm who collected the tolls until, after nationalised rail, it was bought out by

Hampshire County Council Hampshire County Council (HCC) is an English council that governs eleven of the thirteen districts geographically located within the ceremonial county of Hampshire. As one of twenty-four county councils in England, it acts as the upper tier of ...

in 1955 – tolls paid down the price and ceased a few years later. Today silting in the harbour as a result of the structure (almost a dam) occurs, but is ameliorated a higher sea level and the scouring effects of the Isle of Wight ferries. Before the structure it is said the diurnal tide influenced flow up to

. Against the sea, the outer limit of the end of the estuary's mud at low tide is 550–650 metres closer to land than in 1895.

Reedbeds

The river's extensive

reedbeds A reedbed or reed bed is a natural habitat found in floodplains, waterlogged depressions and estuaries. Reedbeds are part of a succession from young reeds colonising open water or wet ground through a gradation of increasingly dry ground. As ...

are a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Water quality

The Environment Agency measure water quality of the river systems in England. Each is given an overall ecological status, which may be one of five levels: high, good, moderate, poor and bad. There are several components that are used to determine this, including biological status, which looks at the quantity and varieties of

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

angiosperm Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s and fish. Chemical status, which compares the concentrations of various chemicals against known safe concentrations, is rated good or fail. Text was copied from this source, which is available under a
Open Government Licence v3.0
© Crown copyright. Water quality of the Lymington River in 2019:

References

External links

{{authority control Lymington Rivers of Hampshire Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Hampshire

History

Reedbeds

Water quality

See also

References

External links