Newton Stacey Ford, on the River Dever (geograph 5890792)

The River Dever is a

chalk stream Chalk streams are rivers that rise from springs in landscapes with chalk bedrock. Since chalk is permeable, water percolates easily through the ground to the water table and chalk streams therefore receive little surface runoff. As a result, th ...

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 the south of

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 ...

. It rises at

West Stratton West Stratton is a village in the civil parish of Micheldever in the City of Winchester district of Hampshire, England. According to the Post Office the 2011 Census was included in the civil parish of Kimpton. The village lies close to the M3, w ...

near

Micheldever Micheldever is a village in Hampshire, England, situated north of Winchester. It lies upon the River Dever . The river, and village, formerly part of Stratton Park, lie on a Hampshire grass downland, underlain with chalk and flint. Parts of th ...

and flows westwards for to meet the

River Test The River Test is a chalk stream in Hampshire in the south of England. It rises at Ashe near Basingstoke and flows southwards for to Southampton Water. Settlements on the Test include the towns of Stockbridge and Romsey. Below the village o ...

Wherwell Wherwell is a village on the River Test in Hampshire, England. The name may derive from its bubbling springs resulting in the Middle Ages place name “Hwerwyl” noted in AD 955, possibly meaning “kettle springs” or “cauldron springs.” ...

Course

The source is at

Above Ordnance Datum In the British Isles, an ordnance datum or OD is a vertical datum used by an ordnance survey as the basis for deriving altitudes on maps. A spot height may be expressed as AOD for "above ordnance datum". Usually mean sea level (MSL) is used fo ...

(AOD) alongside the A33, the main road north-east from

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

, of Roman origin, and meanders west through the village of

, three hamlets:

Weston Colley Weston Colley is a hamlet of about twenty dwellings, adjacent to (and within the parish of) Micheldever, Winchester, Hampshire, England. It is within the City of Winchester local government ward of Wonston And Micheldever. Winchester is also the ...

Stoke Charity Stoke Charity is a small village on the River Dever that lies within the Wonston (where the 2011 Census was included) civil parish in the City of Winchester district of Hampshire, England. Its nearest town is Winchester, which lies approximately ...

and

Wonston Wonston is a village and civil parish in the City of Winchester district of Hampshire, England. The village had an estimated population of 1,283 in the census of 2001. The civil parish includes the settlements of Sutton Scotney, Stoke Charity, ...

, then its largest village,

Sutton Scotney Sutton Scotney is a village in Hampshire, England, north of Winchester in the civil parish of Wonston. It lies alongside the River Dever and is now bypassed by the A34 trunk road. It is notable for having been the site of numerous Spitfire crash ...

, followed by Upper and Lower Bullington. The river skirts to the north of

Barton Stacey Barton Stacey is a village and undulating civil parish, which includes the hamlets of Bransbury, Newton Stacey, Drayton and Cocum, in the Test Valley district of Hampshire, England, centred about south-east of Andover. It is bounded to the n ...

and through the hamlet of Bransbury, meeting the Test on Bransbury Common, opposite the east fields of

on the multi-channel Test's West Bank at AOD.

Etymology

From

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

times some records have ''Myceldefer''. The likely first sound-meaning denoted by the scribe is , that means "great", and the latter part, if from the

Common Brittonic Common Brittonic ( cy, Brythoneg; kw, Brythonek; br, Predeneg), also known as British, Common Brythonic, or Proto-Brittonic, was a Celtic language spoken in Britain and Brittany. It is a form of Insular Celtic, descended from Proto-Celtic, a ...

, "water, river" as in

Andover Andover may refer to: Places Australia * Andover, Tasmania Canada * Andover Parish, New Brunswick * Perth-Andover, New Brunswick United Kingdom * Andover, Hampshire, England ** RAF Andover, a former Royal Air Force station United States * Ando ...

or the

Candover Brook The Candover Brook is a chalk stream in the English county of Hampshire. It is a tributary of the River Itchen, which it joins near the town of New Alresford. The stream rises from springs just to the south of the village of Preston Candover. ...

nearby. Alternatively the

Old Welsh Old Welsh ( cy, Hen Gymraeg) is the stage of the Welsh language from about 800 AD until the early 12th century when it developed into Middle Welsh.Koch, p. 1757. The preceding period, from the time Welsh became distinct from Common Brittonic ...

for "bog" is suggested by the earliest-known form, from

862 __NOTOC__ Year 862 ( DCCCLXII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * The Varangians (called Rus'), under the leadership of Rurik, a Viking chie ...

, ''Mycendefr'', not relatively prevalent due to the gradient and alkaline water.

Attributes

It is essentially fed by very close chalk aquifers, likewise to its continuation the Test, a highly abundant watercourse in Europe for large trout. It includes two trout farms, at the otherwise almost wholly green locality of Bransbury, and at Difford, north of Barton Stacey. The watermill at Weston Colley is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

/. The mill at Bransbury is also Grade II listed.

Water quality

The Environment Agency measures the 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 River Dever in 2019:

References

;References ;Notes

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dever, River Dever, River 1Dever