The Prittle Brook is a 7.2 mile (11.59 km)

watercourse A stream is a continuous body of surface water flowing within the bed and banks of a channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to by a variety of local or regional names. Long large streams are ...

in south

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. A tributary of the

River Roach A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wa ...

, the

brook A brook is a small river or natural stream of fresh water. It may also refer to: Computing *Brook, a programming language for GPU programming based on C *Brook+, an explicit data-parallel C compiler *BrookGPU, a framework for GPGPU programming ...

rises in

Thundersley Thundersley is a town and former civil parish, now in the unparished area of Benfleet, in the Castle Point borough, in southeast Essex, England. It sits on a clay ridge shared with Basildon and Hadleigh, east of Charing Cross, London. In 1951 ...

and passes through Hadleigh,

Leigh-on-Sea Leigh-on-Sea (), commonly referred to simply as Leigh, is a town and civil parish in the City of Southend-on-Sea, in the ceremonial county of Essex, England. In 2011, it had a population of 22,509. Geography Leigh-on-Sea is on the northern ...

, Westcliff,

Prittlewell Prittlewell is an inner city area of Southend-on-Sea in the City of Southend-on-Sea, in the ceremonial county of Essex, England. Historically, Prittlewell is the original settlement of the city, Southend being the ''south end'' of Prittlewell. ...

Rochford Rochford is a town in Essex, England, north of Southend-on-Sea, from London and from Chelmsford, the county town. At the 2011 census, the Civil parishes in England, civil parish, which includes the town and London Southend Airport, had a popu ...

and discharges into the Roach and then into the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

via the Roach and Crouch estuaries.

Description

Course

Prittle Brook rises in Thundersley near Kiln Road opposite Shipwrights Drive (51°33'38"N 0°35'40"E) it flows (partly culverted) north then east and under Rayleigh Road ( A129). It emerges from a culvert near Prittle Close, and combines with another stream flowing from the north.Ordnance Survey, 1:25000, Explorer 175 Southend-on-Sea & Basildon Brentwood & Billericay, 1999 Flowing eastwards, its course is through West Wood, then under private properties before crossing under Daws Heath Road. It then flows through private property again before reaching Dodds Grove Nature Reserve and then into Hadleigh Great Wood and Belfairs Wood. The brook formed a series of meanders to the north of Hadleigh Great Wood. These were 'tampered with after 1920 and most of the meanders cut off'. A small tributary arises near The Crescent, Hadleigh and flows east under Woodfield Road, to the north of St. David’s Drive, then under Highlands Boulevard and joins Prittle Brook to the rear of houses in Vardon Drive, Leigh-on-Sea (51°34'27"N 0°42'59"E). Another tributary arises in Hadleigh Great Wood and flows north east to join Prittle Brook at the boundary of the wood. From Belfairs the brook flows east under Eastwood Road and broadly follows the alignment of Manchester Drive and Fairfax Drive – known as the Prittle Brook Greenway – to Prittlewell Chase Southend. From the eastern end of the Greenway the Prittle Brook flows under Victoria Avenue (

A127 The A127, also known as the Southend Arterial Road, is a major road in Essex, England. It was constructed as a new arterial road project in the 1920s, linking Romford with Southend-on-Sea, replacing the older A13. Formerly classified as a tr ...

), through Priory Park and north, past

London Southend Airport London Southend Airport is an international airport situated on the outskirts of Southend-on-Sea in Essex, England, approximately from the centre of London. The airport straddles the boundaries between the city of Southend-on-Sea and the Ro ...

to Rochford and eventually joins with an arm of the

(Fleethall Creek) at Sutton Bridge (51°34'27"N 0°42'59"E). The normal tidal limit of the Roach is about 150 metres south of Sutton Bridge. The Prittle Brook has a catchment area of 20.18 km² (4,987 acres).

Prittle Brook Greenway

A 5.7 km pathway (officially designated the "Prittle Brook Greenway" in 2010) enables walkers and cyclists to follow the section of the Brook from Belfairs, past

Southend University Hospital Southend University Hospital is an NHS hospital located in Westcliff-on-Sea, Southend-on-Sea, Essex. It is managed by Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust. History In 1887, to celebrate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, a public fund was st ...

to Roots Hall, effectively providing a route from Leigh into Southend which avoids the main roads. This pathway, built in the 1940s, follows the Prittle Brook as it passes under several roads; the bridge which leads to Our Lady of Lourdes School in Manchester Drive runs directly over the Brook. This part of the Brook's route has been urbanised since the 1930s, and the banks have been concreted east of the Belfairs Wood area. As a consequence, the velocity of the brook has greatly increased, a phenomenon particularly noticeable during and after heavy rain (see below). The Prittle Brook Greenway was the subject of major improvement work between 2009 and 2012, during which the sections running parallel with Blenheim Chase and Prittlewell Chase were widened and signposted.

Flood defences

In September 1968, during the

Great flood of 1968 The Great Flood of 1968 was a flood caused by a pronounced trough of low pressure which brought exceptionally heavy rain and thunderstorms to South East England and France in mid-September 1968, with the worst on Sunday 15 September 1968, and fol ...

, the Prittle Brook overflowed and flooded houses in Daws Heath Road, Hadleigh and around Manchester Drive, Leigh-on-Sea. The brook was subsequently culverted and provided with concrete embankments west of Daws Heath Road. In 1972–3 the Prittle Brook Flood Relief scheme was constructed. This takes excess water from the brook at times of flood from an inlet structure west of Eastwood Road (51°33'04"N 0°38'45"E. Elevation 33.5 metres AOD), Leigh-on-Sea and transfers water through an underground tunnel. Another intake to the tunnel is adjacent to Manchester Drive.The tunnel is 2.5 metres in diameter and is formed from segmented concrete blocks, it was constructed by Murphy using a rotary drum excavator. The tunnel discharges water into the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

at an outfall on the foreshore at Chalkwell beach. The water level in the Prittle Brook is continuously monitored. The Prittlewell Brook icMonitoring Station is located in Belfairs Park (51°33'10.9"N 0°38'28.0"E); it comprises a concrete

flume A flume is a human-made channel for water, in the form of an open declined gravity chute whose walls are raised above the surrounding terrain, in contrast to a trench or ditch. Flumes are not to be confused with aqueducts, which are built to t ...

and equipment cabinet. The current water level is accessible online. ''Note: Coordinate is at Priory Park, Southend on Sea''

References

External links

Prittle Brook Greenway
Cycle Southend
Prittle Brook Greenway Phase 1 nearing completionThe Prittle Brook Beyond the Point
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prittle Brook Castle Point Rivers of Essex Southend-on-Sea (district)