River Frome, Dorset
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The River Frome is a
river A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of ...
in
Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...
in the south of
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
. At 30 miles (48 km) long it is the major chalkstream in southwest England. It is navigable upstream from
Poole Harbour Poole Harbour is a large natural harbour in Dorset, southern England, with the town of Poole on its shores. The harbour is a drowned valley ( ria) formed at the end of the last ice age and is the estuary of several rivers, the largest being th ...
as far as the town of Wareham.


Geography

The river rises in the Dorset Downs at Evershot, passes through Cattistock, Maiden Newton, Dorchester, West Stafford and Woodsford. At Wareham it and the parallel
River Piddle The River Piddle or Trent or North River is a small rural Dorset river which rises in the Dorset Downs and flows into Poole Harbour near Wareham. Etymology The river's name has Germanic origins and has had various spellings over the years. I ...
flow into
Poole Harbour Poole Harbour is a large natural harbour in Dorset, southern England, with the town of Poole on its shores. The harbour is a drowned valley ( ria) formed at the end of the last ice age and is the estuary of several rivers, the largest being th ...
via the Wareham Channel. The catchment area is , approximately one sixth of the county. East of Dorchester the river runs over sands, clays and gravels which overlie the chalk; as the valley gradient is gentle the Frome has deposited much sediment here and thus created a broad
floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high Discharge (hydrolog ...
. Historically this contained marshes and gave the name to the
Durotriges The Durotriges were one of the Celtic tribes living in British Iron Age, Britain prior to the Roman invasion of Britain, Roman invasion. The tribe lived in modern Dorset, south Wiltshire, south Somerset and Devon east of the River Axe (Lyme Bay), ...
, ''water dwellers'', the Brittonic
Celt The Celts ( , see Names of the Celts#Pronunciation, pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( ) were a collection of Indo-European languages, Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient Indo-European people, reached the apoge ...
ic tribe who inhabited Dorset. The river forms a wide, shallow ria at its estuary, Poole Harbour. Prior to the end of the last ice age, the Purbeck Hills were continuous with the
Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...
, and the Frome would have continued eastwards through what is now Poole Harbour and Poole Bay along the Solent, collecting the StourAvon, Beaulieu, and
Test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film) ...
ItchenHamble catchments, before emptying into the Channel between
Bembridge Bembridge is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish located on the easternmost point of the Isle of Wight. It had a population of 3,848 according to the 2001 census of the United Kingdom, leading to the implausible claim by so ...
and Selsey Bill.


Human history

At the end of the 1st century AD, the Romans built a aqueduct to supply public fountains and public baths at their new town of
Durnovaria Durnovaria is a suggested spelling for the Latin form of the name of the Roman town of Dorchester in the modern English county of Dorset, amended from the actually observed Durnonovaria. Upon the assumption that the name was originally Brytho ...
(Dorchester). Taking the form of a channel about 1.0 m wide and 0.35 m deep cut into the underlying chalk on an artificial terrace, lined and overlain with timber, the aqueduct took water from the Frome upstream at Nunnery Mead, near Notton (between modern-day Maiden Newton and Frampton) and closely followed the contours of the valley side to the southwest of the river. Over its course the aqueduct only fell , some less than the river itself. It has been calculated that water would have reached Durnovaria at the rate of 8 million
gallons The gallon is a unit of volume in British imperial units and United States customary units. The imperial gallon (imp gal) is defined as , and is or was used in the United Kingdom and its former colonies, including Ireland, Canada, Australia, ...
per day. Some traces of the aqueduct terrace can still be seen at Bradford Peverell and on the Dorchester by-pass. The
Danes Danes (, ), or Danish people, are an ethnic group and nationality native to Denmark and a modern nation identified with the country of Denmark. This connection may be ancestral, legal, historical, or cultural. History Early history Denmark ...
made frequent raids up the river. The town walls at Wareham were built in 876, possibly by
Alfred the Great Alfred the Great ( ; – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who both died when Alfr ...
, to defend the town against this threat. Until the late 19th century the river was an important part of the trade route for the export of Purbeck Ball Clay from the
Isle of Purbeck The Isle of Purbeck is a peninsula in Dorset, England. It is bordered by water on three sides: the English Channel to the south and east, where steep cliffs fall to the sea; and by the marshy lands of the River Frome, Dorset, River Frome and Poo ...
. Originally the clay was brought to wharves at Wareham by
pack horse A packhorse, pack horse, or sumpter refers to a horse, mule, donkey, or pony used to carry goods on its back, usually in sidebags or panniers. Typically packhorses are used to cross difficult terrain, where the absence of roads prevents the use o ...
from the clay pits to the south. In around 1830 the Furzebrook Railway was built, connecting the pits to a wharf at
Ridge A ridge is a long, narrow, elevated geomorphologic landform, structural feature, or a combination of both separated from the surrounding terrain by steep sides. The sides of a ridge slope away from a narrow top, the crest or ridgecrest, wi ...
. This route was eventually superseded by the use of the main line rail network, and eventually by road.


Ecology

The Frome has suffered a dramatic decline in the run of
salmon Salmon (; : salmon) are any of several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the genera ''Salmo'' and ''Oncorhynchus'' of the family (biology), family Salmonidae, native ...
in recent years. In 1988 over 4000 fish ran the river; by 2004 the run had fallen to 750 fish, and in 2023 to an estimated 443. The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust is carrying out research at its Salmon & Trout Research Centre at East Stoke into the decline of
Atlantic Salmon The Atlantic salmon (''Salmo salar'') is a species of ray-finned fish in the family Salmonidae. It is the third largest of the Salmonidae, behind Hucho taimen, Siberian taimen and Pacific Chinook salmon, growing up to a meter in length. Atlan ...
to understand the causes and how to reverse the decline.


River level monitoring

There are river level monitoring stations on the River Frome at: * Maiden Newton * Louds Mill * Stinsford * East Stoke


See also

*Other Rivers Frome * Rivers of the United Kingdom * Geology of Dorset


References


External links

*Map and aerial photo sources for: near Evershot, source of the , a tributary and in Poole Harbour.
Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust Wild Salmon Recovery ProjectFrome, Piddle & West Dorset Fisheries Association
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frome, River Isle of Purbeck Rivers of Dorset Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Dorset 1Frome