The River Lambourn 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 ...
in the
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
county of
Berkshire
Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...
. It rises in the
Berkshire Downs
The Berkshire Downs are a range of chalk downland hills in South east England split between the counties of Berkshire and Oxfordshire. They are part of the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The western parts of the downs ...
near its namesake village of
Lambourn
Lambourn is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. It lies just north of the M4 Motorway between Swindon and Newbury, and borders Wiltshire to the west and Oxfordshire to the north. After Newmarket it is the largest centre of ra ...
and is a
tributary
A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage ...
of the
River Kennet
The Kennet is a tributary of the River Thames in Southern England. Most of the river is straddled by the North Wessex Downs AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). The lower reaches have been made navigable as the Kennet Navigation, which â ...
, which is itself a tributary of 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 ...
.
The river is a biological
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 ...
and
Special Protection Area
A Special Protection Area (SPA) is a designation under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. Under the Directive, Member States of the European Union (EU) have a duty to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and cert ...
under the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds.
Perennial River
The upper reaches of the river are seasonal, with a
perennial
A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...
source derived from a number of springs located upstream of the village of
Great Shefford. At times when the
water table
The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water. It can also be simply explained as the depth below which the ground is saturated.
T ...
in the
chalk aquifer feeding the river is high (usually between November and March) the source of the river migrates upstream. Along the
bourn
Bourn is a small village and civil parish in South Cambridgeshire, England. Surrounding villages include Caxton, Eltisley and Cambourne. It is 8 miles (12 km) from the county town of Cambridge. The population of the parish was 1,015 people ...
section of the river are located the villages of
Eastbury Eastbury may refer to:
Places called:
* Eastbury, Berkshire
* Eastbury, Hertfordshire
* Eastbury Manor House
Eastbury Manor House is a Grade I listed building situated in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham in Greater London, England. ...
and
East Garston
East Garston is a village and civil parish on the River Lambourn, about north of Hungerford in West Berkshire. The river flows through the village, dividing many houses from the main road, so that each has a bridge over the river to the front d ...
, while along the perennial section of the river are the villages of
Great Shefford,
Welford,
Boxford,
Bagnor,
Donnington and
Shaw
Shaw may refer to:
Places Australia
*Shaw, Queensland
Canada
*Shaw Street, a street in Toronto
England
*Shaw, Berkshire, a village
*Shaw, Greater Manchester, a location in the parish of Shaw and Crompton
*Shaw, Swindon, a List of United Kingdom ...
. Below Shaw is the confluence of the River Lambourn with the River Kennet, located between
Newbury and
Thatcham
Thatcham is an historic market town and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire, centred 3 miles (5 km) east of Newbury, 14 miles (24 km) west of Reading and 54 miles (87 km) west of London.
Geography
Thatcham straddles t ...
. The River Lambourn itself has a single perennial tributary, the Winterbourne Stream, which joins it at the village of Bagnor.
Lambourn Valley Way
The Lambourn Valley Way from the
Uffington White Horse
The Uffington White Horse is a prehistoric hill figure, long, formed from deep trenches filled with crushed white chalk. The figure is situated on the upper slopes of White Horse Hill in the English civil parish of Uffington (in the cerem ...
to
Newbury generally follows the River Lambourn from
Lambourn
Lambourn is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. It lies just north of the M4 Motorway between Swindon and Newbury, and borders Wiltshire to the west and Oxfordshire to the north. After Newmarket it is the largest centre of ra ...
to
Donnington Castle
Donnington Castle is a ruined medieval castle, situated in the small village of Donnington, just north of the town of Newbury in the English county of Berkshire. It was founded by Sir Richard Abberbury the Elder in 1386 and was bought by Thoma ...
, in many places using the embankments of the old
Lambourn Valley Railway
The Lambourn Valley Railway (LVR) was a branch railway line running from the town of Newbury, Berkshire north-west to the village of Lambourn. It was opened in 1898. Fulfilling a local need, it was in financial difficulties throughout its ind ...
.
Upper Lambourn and Lynch Wood
The highest source of the Lambourn is on the Maddle Road in the village of
Upper Lambourn
Upper Lambourn is a small village in the county of Berkshire, England. The village is situated in the civil parish of Lambourn , and is 1.2 miles (2 km) to the north-west of the village of Lambourn, just off the Lambourn to Shrivenham road. ...
, near the Wiltshire and Oxfordshire borders. It emerges from a rainwater drain and occasionally flows down a channel between the road and pavement. In the village it runs underground in a pipe until re-emerging alongside the road opposite
The Malt Shovel and along Malt Shovel Lane. At this point it is usually little more than a damp, muddy ditch, and remains so until halfway through Lynch Wood. Here it is fed by several springs, two of which are close to the Goose Green road, forming a short stream that runs ten feet downhill into the river. These springs quickly fill the channel and the river swells ten to twenty feet wide and over three feet deep, submerging several fallen trees. Although
bourne
Bourne may refer to:
Places UK
* Bourne, Lincolnshire, a town
** Bourne Abbey
** Bourne railway station
* Bourne (electoral division), West Sussex
* Bourne SSSI, Avon, a Site of Special Scientific Interest near Burrington, North Somerset
* Bourne ...
until
Great Shefford the river was not dry below Lynch Wood in 2007–08. However, it dried up in June–July 2009 and the riverbed remained dry until January 2010 due to 4-5 inches of snow melting in a thaw. It dried up again from the summer of 2010 until the spring of 2012, when increased rainfall filled the river, since when the adjacent roads in Upper Lambourn, Lambourn and Eastbury have been regularly flooded.
Lambourn to Thatcham
The river leaves the wood and enters
Lambourn
Lambourn is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. It lies just north of the M4 Motorway between Swindon and Newbury, and borders Wiltshire to the west and Oxfordshire to the north. After Newmarket it is the largest centre of ra ...
under a bridge crossed by the Goose Green Road, here it flows more quickly as the channel narrows to four to six feet across and six to eight inches deep. It is constricted by the houses built on the riverbank, which were partially flooded in
July 2007 as numerous weeds clogged the river under the many small bridges (and even one garden shed) built over it. It passes by
The Lamb and the
Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service
Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service (RBFRS) is a statutory fire and rescue service covering the area of the ceremonial county of Berkshire in England. The fire service was formerly administered by Berkshire County Council, but when that was ...
and runs between the houses on the south side of the Newbury Road and the playing fields to the north of Bockhampton Road. There is a ford next to the Bockhampton Road bridge which is used by horses (and accidentally by a car in March 2009, which had to be pulled out) and the river leaves the town through
Bockhampton Manor Farm. Bernard's Ford is found to the west of
Eastbury Eastbury may refer to:
Places called:
* Eastbury, Berkshire
* Eastbury, Hertfordshire
* Eastbury Manor House
Eastbury Manor House is a Grade I listed building situated in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham in Greater London, England. ...
, which is also suitable only for tractors and horses. Here the Lambourn forced its banks in
July 2007 and flowed down the Newbury Road for over a hundred yards before rejoining the river. The Lambourn runs through the middle of Eastbury, and pas
The Plough Inn which hold
The Great Eastbury Duck Raceon the river in May. In
East Garston
East Garston is a village and civil parish on the River Lambourn, about north of Hungerford in West Berkshire. The river flows through the village, dividing many houses from the main road, so that each has a bridge over the river to the front d ...
there are many houses are built on one bank with their own bridges from the front door to the road opposite. The river splits into several channels at
Great Shefford, and is joined by many small streams, which join as it leaves the village under the A33
Swan Bridgeand behin
From Lambourn to Newbury the river remains roughly parallel to the Newbury Road (which becomes the Lambourn Road) which crosses it many times. In Newbury it runs between
Donnington and
Speen and south of
Shaw House until it joins the
River Kennet
The Kennet is a tributary of the River Thames in Southern England. Most of the river is straddled by the North Wessex Downs AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). The lower reaches have been made navigable as the Kennet Navigation, which â ...
to the south of
The Nature Discovery Centre
The Nature Discovery Centre is a nature reserve in Thatcham in Berkshire. It is managed by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust.
This site has a variety of habitats including a lake, woodland, reedbeds and hedges. Th ...
. The River Kennet joins 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
Reading
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...
.
Flow regime
The River Lambourn is almost unique for a chalk stream in southern England in that its flow regime remains near-natural in form; not being significantly modified by groundwater abstraction. Ironically, this situation developed because of a major groundwater abstraction project. In the 1960s the long term water supply situation for London was regarded as vulnerable and one avenue investigated to rectify this was to use untapped water resources naturally stored in the chalk aquifer of low population density areas of south east England. One such area was the West Berkshire Downs, including the catchment of the River Lambourn. The plan was to abstract groundwater from the chalk aquifer during times of drought and then use the existing river system as a natural conduit to transport the water to London, via the River Kennet and the River Thames.
[pp81-82, Elizabeth Porter, ''Water Management in England and Wales'', Cambridge University Press, 1979]
An area in the catchment of the River Lambourn was selected as a pilot study to assess the feasibility of the project, and the Lambourn Valley Pilot Scheme was undertaken between 1967 and 1970. The final conclusion from the pilot study was that the overall scheme appeared feasible and a significant number of large abstraction boreholes and observation boreholes, together with pipelines and control equipment, were installed in the Lambourn catchment and also in other nearby river catchments. The project, named the Thames Groundwater Scheme, was completed in 1976 to coincide with the most serious drought in 50 years, but on final testing of the scheme it was found that the effective increase in river flow downstream was minimal, and essentially the project was a failure.
Almost all of the infrastructure for the project (now known as the West Berkshire Groundwater Scheme) is still in place and maintained, albeit on a rather shoestring budget. But the lasting legacy of the scheme is that the catchment has been preserved as a near-natural groundwater system, almost totally unaffected by groundwater abstractions. This factor made it an ideal candidate for selection as one of the flagship research sites for the
NERC LOCAR research project investigating permeable (i.e. groundwater dominated) catchments.
The Second Battle of Newbury, 1644
In 1644 the Royalist Army of
King Charles I of England
Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. He was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after hi ...
took up a defensive position in the triangle where the River Lambourn meets the
River Kennet
The Kennet is a tributary of the River Thames in Southern England. Most of the river is straddled by the North Wessex Downs AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). The lower reaches have been made navigable as the Kennet Navigation, which â ...
, with fortifications at
Shaw House and
Speen. Here it was attacked by the Parliamentarian Armies in the
Second battle of Newbury
The Second Battle of Newbury was a battle of the First English Civil War fought on 27 October 1644, in Speen, adjoining Newbury in Berkshire. The battle was fought close to the site of the First Battle of Newbury, which took place in la ...
on 27 October 1644.
See also
*
List of rivers in England
This is a list of rivers of England, organised geographically and taken anti-clockwise around the English coast where the various rivers discharge into the surrounding seas, from the Solway Firth on the Scottish border to the Welsh Dee on the Wel ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lambourn, River
1Lambourn
Rivers of Berkshire
Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Berkshire
West Berkshire District