The River Went is a
river
A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...
in
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...
,
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 close to
Featherstone
Featherstone is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the City of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, two miles south-west of Pontefract. Historic counties of England, Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, in 2011 ...
and flows eastward, joining the
River Don at
Reedholme Common.
A possible site of the
Battle of Winwaed
The Battle of the Winwaed (Welsh: ''Maes Gai''; lat-med, Strages Gai Campi) was fought on 15 November 655 between King Penda of Mercia and Oswiu of Bernicia, ending in the Mercians' defeat and Penda's death. According to Bede, the battl ...
is believed to be located somewhere along the valley of the Went.
Route
The river rises at
Streethouse
Streethouse is a semi rural village in West Yorkshire, England that is situated to the east of Wakefield, the west of Featherstone and the south-west of Castleford. It is also situated on a Roman road.
History
A former mining village, Stree ...
, just to the west of Featherstone, and close to the contour. It is called Went Beck at this point, and flows generally eastwards, to the south of Featherstone. Just before it is crossed by the B6428 at Little Went bridge, it is joined by Hardwick Beck, flowing north-eastwards from the lakes of Nostell Park, once the site of
Nostell Priory
Nostell Priory is a Palladian house in Nostell, West Yorkshire, England, near Crofton on the road to Doncaster from Wakefield. It dates from 1733, and was built for the Winn family on the site of a medieval priory. The Priory and its contents w ...
, but now containing a
grade I listed
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 ...
Palladian
Palladian architecture is a European architectural style derived from the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio (1508–1580). What is today recognised as Palladian architecture evolved from his concepts of symmetry, perspective and ...
house owned by the
National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
. It then flows between
High Ackworth and
Ackworth Moor Top
Ackworth is a village and civil parish in the metropolitan borough of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. It stands between Pontefract, Barnsley and Doncaster on the River Went. It has four parts: High Ackworth, Low Ackworth, Ackworth Moor Top, ...
, before being crossed by
Low Ackworth
Ackworth is a village and civil parish in the metropolitan borough of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. It stands between Pontefract, Barnsley and Doncaster on the River Went. It has four parts: High Ackworth, Low Ackworth, Ackworth Moor Top ...
railway viaduct.
[Ordnance Survey, 1:25,000 map]
Continuing eastwards, it is crossed by the A639 road, which follows the course of a Roman road at this point. The bridge is called Standing Flat bridge, and is just to the north of
Thorpe Audlin. The next crossing is the B6474 as it enters
Wentbridge
Wentbridge is a small village in the City of Wakefield district of West Yorkshire, England. It lies around southeast of its nearest town of size, Pontefract, close to the A1 road.
The village contains one of the largest viaducts in Europe, ...
. The
grade II listed
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 ...
bridge has two arches, made of rockfaced
magnesian limestone
The Magnesian Limestone is a suite of carbonate rocks in north-east England dating from the Permian period. The outcrop stretches from Nottingham northwards through Yorkshire and into County Durham where it is exposed along the coast between Ha ...
and
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
ashlar blocks, and is probably early nineteenth century. The
A1 road
A list of roads designated A1, sorted by alphabetical order of country.
* A01 highway (Afghanistan), a long ring road or beltway connecting Kabul, Kandahar, Herat and Mazar
* A1 motorway (Albania), connecting Durrës and Kukës
* A001 highwa ...
bypasses Wentbridge to the east, and is carried over the river by Wentbridge viaduct. This was designed by F A Sims, who was the senior designer and resident engineer for the bridges department of the West Riding County Council, and it was opened in 1961. It consists of a continuous beam, supported at its ends and by two sloping legs, which are hinged at both ends. The side spans are long, while the centre span is long. It was probably the first bridge in England to use prestressing cables which did not pass through the concrete sections, and one of the first to use precast concrete hinges. When it was built, it was the largest bridge of this kind in Europe, and in 1964 the
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
declared it to be a structure of significance in twentieth century engineering. It is grade II listed.
Soon the river is passing through Brockadale, a steep-sided, wooded valley, before reaching
Kirk Smeaton
Kirk Smeaton is a village and civil parish in the Selby District of North Yorkshire, England. It is located at the southern end of the county close to South Yorkshire and East Riding of Yorkshire. Historically the village was part of the West Ri ...
, situated on its southern bank, and
Little Smeaton, on its northern bank, near which a railway used to cross, which has now been dismantled. At
Norton Norton may refer to:
Places
Norton, meaning 'north settlement' in Old English, is a common place name. Places named Norton include: Canada
*Rural Municipality of Norton No. 69, Saskatchewan
*Norton Parish, New Brunswick
**Norton, New Brunswick, a ...
, it passes the site of Norton mill and Norton Priory before passing under Tanpit bridge, a single arched bridge constructed of dressed stone with brick lined soffits in the early nineteenth century. By the time it reaches another railway line, it is only above sea level, and the channel is embanked on both sides to prevent flooding of the surrounding low-lying land.
[
Beyond Went bridge, where the ]A19 road
The A19 is a major road in England running approximately parallel to and east of the A1 road. Although the two roads meet at the northern end of the A19, the two roads originally met at the southern end of the A19 in Doncaster, but the old ...
crosses, the river used to take a winding route round the southern edge of Stubbs Common, but a new straight channel has been made, which has counter drains on either side, to collect seepage through the banks. Lake Drain joins the river at Lake Mouth, just beyond the point at which the old course of the river rejoins the new. The Doncaster to Selby railway line crosses next,[ after which an early nineteenth century red-brick bridge carries a lane over its course at Topham. The river passes to the north of ]Sykehouse
Sykehouse is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England, on the border with the East Riding of Yorkshire. It was part of the West Riding of Yorkshire until 1974. It had a population of 438 in ...
, where an aqueduct built in 1905 carries the New Junction Canal
The New Junction Canal is a canal in South Yorkshire, England. It is part of the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation (S&SYN), although it was jointly funded by the Aire and Calder Navigation, and was opened in 1905. It links the River Don ...
over it. At this point it is running parallel to the Aire and Calder Navigation
The Aire and Calder Navigation is the canalised section of the Rivers Aire and Calder in West Yorkshire, England. The first improvements to the rivers above Knottingley were completed in 1704 when the Aire was made navigable to Leeds and the ...
, and soon it joins the River Don, which was diverted northwards in 1628 by the drainage engineer Cornelius Vermuyden
Sir Cornelius Vermuyden (Sint-Maartensdijk, 1595 – London, 11 October 1677) was a Dutch engineer who introduced Dutch land reclamation methods to England. Vermuyden was
commissioned by the Crown to drain Hatfield Chase in the Isle of Axholme, ...
, and then heads eastwards to Goole
Goole is a port town and civil parish on the River Ouse in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The town's historic county is the West Riding of Yorkshire.
According to the 2011 UK census, Goole parish had a population of 19,518, an increa ...
by way of the Dutch River.
Water quality
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, the river was seriously polluted as a result of coal mining and the growth of population to support the mining operations. In many cases, villages developed around the mines and had inadequate or no sewage treatment plants, while the mines discharged mine water containing ochre, and large quantities of solids, which were deposited on the bed and choked vegetation. As a result, the fish population was almost entirely destroyed, and the river remained without fish until the 1970s.
The state of the Don was similarly lifeless, but by the 1970s, water quality in the lower Went was slightly improved, as a result of natural purification of the effluents being added to the river, and a small population of fish re-established itself. Most are thought to have been swept down the Don from still waters much higher up than the mouth of the Went, but they survived the transit downstream to take refuge in the Went. As water quality continued to improve, the fish became self-sustaining by the 1980s, and populations of 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 ...
, bream
Bream ( ) are species of freshwater and marine fish belonging to a variety of genera including ''Abramis'' (e.g., ''A. brama'', the common bream), ''Acanthopagrus'', '' Argyrops'', ''Blicca'', '' Brama'', ''Chilotilapia'', '' Etelis'', ''Lepo ...
, perch
Perch is a common name for fish of the genus ''Perca'', freshwater gamefish belonging to the family Percidae. The perch, of which three species occur in different geographical areas, lend their name to a large order of vertebrates: the Percif ...
and eel
Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 19 families, 111 genera, and about 800 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage ...
s began to spread upstream. While these species were suited to the ponded nature of the river below Sykehouse, the river above there is faster flowing, and more suitable for riverine species of fish such as chub and 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 ...
. There was no chance of natural redevelopment of these species, as they had all been eliminated by the pollution.
In order to overcome this problem, the Yorkshire Water
Yorkshire Water is a water supply and treatment utility company servicing West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, the East Riding of Yorkshire, part of North Lincolnshire, most of North Yorkshire and part of Derbyshire, in England. The company has its ...
Authority Fisheries department searched for a source of chub and dace which could be re-introduced. An isolated population was eventually found on the River Ouse where Bishop Dyke joins it at Cawood
Cawood (other names: ''Carwood'') is a large village (formerly a market town) and civil parish in the Selby District of North Yorkshire, England that is notable as the finding-place of the Cawood sword. It was historically part of the West Rid ...
. They were netted, and in 1981, over 2,000 young chub and dace were released into the river at Askern
Askern () is a town and civil parish within the City of Doncaster, in South Yorkshire, England. It is on the A19 road between Doncaster and Selby. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it became a spa town in the late 19th century, ...
, below the A19 road
The A19 is a major road in England running approximately parallel to and east of the A1 road. Although the two roads meet at the northern end of the A19, the two roads originally met at the southern end of the A19 in Doncaster, but the old ...
bridge. The operation was a success, as the fish colonised the river upstream and downstream from the release point, and soon became self-sustaining. As a consequence, the Went is now an excellent coarse fishery. There are also populations of chub and dace in the Don near Doncaster, which are believed to have originated from the Went.
The Environment Agency assesses the water quality within 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.
The water quality of the Went was as follows in 2019.
Reasons for the ecological quality being less than good include runoff from agricultural land, discharge from sewage treatment works, and physical modification of the channel, to provide flood production structures which impede the movement of fish along the river. Like many rivers in the UK, the chemical status changed from good to fail in 2019, due to the presence of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE), perfluorooctane sulphonate (PFOS) and mercury compounds, none of which had previously been included in the assessment.
Points of interest
Settlements
*Featherstone
*West Hardwick
West Hardwick is a village and civil parish in the City of Wakefield in West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastw ...
* High Ackworth
*Ackworth Moor Top
Ackworth is a village and civil parish in the metropolitan borough of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. It stands between Pontefract, Barnsley and Doncaster on the River Went. It has four parts: High Ackworth, Low Ackworth, Ackworth Moor Top, ...
*Low Ackworth
Ackworth is a village and civil parish in the metropolitan borough of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. It stands between Pontefract, Barnsley and Doncaster on the River Went. It has four parts: High Ackworth, Low Ackworth, Ackworth Moor Top ...
* Thorpe Audlin
*Wentbridge
Wentbridge is a small village in the City of Wakefield district of West Yorkshire, England. It lies around southeast of its nearest town of size, Pontefract, close to the A1 road.
The village contains one of the largest viaducts in Europe, ...
*Kirk Smeaton
Kirk Smeaton is a village and civil parish in the Selby District of North Yorkshire, England. It is located at the southern end of the county close to South Yorkshire and East Riding of Yorkshire. Historically the village was part of the West Ri ...
* Little Smeaton
*Norton Norton may refer to:
Places
Norton, meaning 'north settlement' in Old English, is a common place name. Places named Norton include: Canada
*Rural Municipality of Norton No. 69, Saskatchewan
*Norton Parish, New Brunswick
**Norton, New Brunswick, a ...
*Walden Stubbs
Walden Stubbs is a small, rural village and civil parish in the Selby District of North Yorkshire, England. At the 2011 Census for England and Wales, 2011 Census, the population was less than 100, so the details are included in the civil parish ...
* Fenwick
* Balne
*Sykehouse
Sykehouse is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England, on the border with the East Riding of Yorkshire. It was part of the West Riding of Yorkshire until 1974. It had a population of 438 in ...
* Pincheon Green
References
Bibliography
* (Page numbers refer to the pdf file).
*
*
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Went
Rivers of Doncaster
Rivers of Wakefield