The River Itchen flows through east
Warwickshire
Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...
in
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 is a small river, about long, and its general course is from south to north.
Course
The River Itchen rises near
Wormleighton
Wormleighton is a village in Warwickshire on top of Wormleighton Hill overlooking the River Cherwell, England. The population taken at the 2011 census was 183.
The original village was by the banks of the Cherwell and can still be seen as a ...
at and flows into a broad valley to the northeast of a range of
ironstone
Ironstone is a sedimentary rock, either deposited directly as a ferruginous sediment or created by chemical replacement, that contains a substantial proportion of an iron ore compound from which iron (Fe) can be smelted commercially. Not to be con ...
hills which border Warwickshire and
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by
two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...
. Shortly after beginning its course it runs under the
Oxford Canal
The Oxford Canal is a narrowboat canal in central England linking the City of Oxford with the Coventry Canal at Hawkesbury (just north of Coventry and south of Bedworth) via Banbury and Rugby. Completed in 1790, it connects to the River Thame ...
. The infant river is fed by several small
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 ...
s and skirts the village of
Bishop's Itchington (to which it gives its name) before passing below the former
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
to
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
railway (now operated by
Chiltern Trains).
A mile-and-a-half north of Bishops Itchington, the River Itchen passes under Deppers Bridge which gives its name to the neighbouring hamlet. A mile further on it passes under the
A425 main road west of the town of
Southam
Southam () is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district of Warwickshire, England. Southam is situated on the River Stowe (called 'The Brook' by many locals), which flows from Napton-on-the-Hill and joins Warwickshire's ...
. Immediately after the bridge, it flows through Stoneythorpe Park and passes the hamlet of
Bascote. A mile north of Bascote, the
Grand Union Canal
The Grand Union Canal in England is part of the British canal system. It is the principal navigable waterway between London and the Midlands. Starting in London, one arm runs to Leicester and another ends in Birmingham, with the latter st ...
crosses the Itchen valley on a half-mile-long
embankment
Embankment may refer to:
Geology and geography
* A levee, an artificial bank raised above the immediately surrounding land to redirect or prevent flooding by a river, lake or sea
* Embankment (earthworks), a raised bank to carry a road, railwa ...
, and is carried over the river on an
aqueduct.
The River Itchen reaches the large village of
Long Itchington (again named from the river) and passes close to the church. West of the village, the river swings to the west briefly and its meandering course is bridged twice by the course of the disused
Leamington to Weedon railway line, now a footpath and
cycleway
Cycling infrastructure is all infrastructure cyclists are allowed to use. Bikeways include bike paths, bike lanes, cycle tracks, rail trails and, where permitted, sidewalks. Roads used by motorists are also cycling infrastructure, except wher ...
.
The River Itchen turns north again and three miles (5 km) further on it reaches
Marton where it flows into the
River Leam
The River Leam (), anciently Leame, etc, is a river in England which rises at Hellidon Hill in Northamptonshire then flows through Warwickshire, including the town of Leamington Spa, named after it. It then flows into the River Avon near Warwi ...
at .
History
In 2009 thousands of fish were killed in the River Itchen when poisonous chemicals washed off neighbouring farmland. Later in the year 3500
roach
Roach may refer to:
Animals
* Cockroach, various insect species of the order Blattodea
* Common roach (''Rutilus rutilus''), a fresh and brackish water fish of the family Cyprinidae
** ''Rutilus'' or roaches, a genus of fishes
* California roach ...
,
dace
A dace is a small fish that can be one of many different species. The unmodified name is usually a reference to the common dace (''Leuciscus leuciscus''). This, like most fish called "daces", belongs to the family Cyprinidae, mostly in subfamily ...
and
chub were released into the river to help to replenish stocks.
A section of the river is designated as a
Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...
, as it "played a significant role in the development of the theory of underfit streams that related change in stream activity to postglacial climatic change and reduced discharges."
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 ...
s,
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.
Water quality of the River Itchen in 2019:
References
*Ordnance Survey, 'Pathfinder' series 1:25000 map, sheet 977,
*Ordnance Survey, 'Landranger' series 1:50000 map, sheet 151
Warwickshire Railways, Leamington-Weedon line page
External links
Map sources for: (SP 390 576), (SP 415 652) and (SP 405 690).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Itchen
Rivers of Warwickshire
Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Warwickshire
2Itchen