The River Sherford, also frequently called the Sherford River, is one of the four main rivers flowing 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 ...

in the county of

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

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 about 12 kilometres long and drains over the

tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

beds near the harbour.''Poole Harbour Catchment Information''
at www.wessexwater.co.uk. Retrieved 6 Nov 2016.

Course

It rises at a spring in the hamlet of Whitefield, west of

Lytchett Matravers Lytchett Matravers is a village and civil parish in Dorset, England. The 2011 census recorded the parish as having 1,439 households and a population of 3,424. History The name comes from the Brittonic ''litchet'' meaning "grey wood" and the ...

, flows southwards into Morden Park lake and then eastwards, passing under the A351 before discharging into

Lytchett Bay Map of Dorset with Lytchett Bay southeast of the centre. Lytchett Bay is located close to the town of Upton, Dorset, United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Bri ...

as the Rock Lea River on the northern side of

.OS topographic map, 1:25,000 series, No. OL15 Purbeck & South Dorset.

Water quality

The Sherford's water body status in 2013 was graded "poor" by the

Environment Agency The Environment Agency (EA) is a non-departmental public body, established in 1996 and sponsored by the United Kingdom government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with responsibilities relating to the protection and enha ...

.Wessex Water, ''Poole Harbour Catchment Initiative: Catchment Plan: Update - May 2014''. Appendix 2.

References

Sherford 1Sherford {{England-river-stub