The Woodbridge Brook is a tributary of the

Bristol Avon The River Avon is a river in the south west of England. To distinguish it from a number of other rivers of the same name, it is often called the Bristol Avon. The name 'Avon' is a cognate of the Welsh word , meaning 'river'. The Avon r ...

. It rises near

Lydiard Millicent Lydiard Millicent is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, about west of the centre of Swindon. The parish contains the hamlets of Lydiard Green, Lydiard Plain, Greatfield and Green Hill; in the northeast the parish extends to Com ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

in the west of England and flows in a generally westerly direction, joining the Avon below

Malmesbury Malmesbury () is a town and civil parish in north Wiltshire, England, which lies approximately west of Swindon, northeast of Bristol, and north of Chippenham. The older part of the town is on a hilltop which is almost surrounded by the up ...

. The brook has a mean flow of and the waters were used in the past to power

watermill A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production of ...

Course

The Woodbridge Brook rises at Midgehall Copse, just north of the

M4 motorway The M4, originally the London-South Wales Motorway, is a motorway in the United Kingdom running from west London to southwest Wales. The English section to the Severn Bridge was constructed between 1961 and 1971; the Welsh element was largely ...

, in the parish of Lydiard Millicent. It flows first in a northerly direction, and then to the west through Webbs Wood, passing to the north of Brinkworth. Continuing westwards through Garsdon Wood it begins to turn to the south and is joined on the right bank by two unnamed streams which have their sources at Braydon Wood and Charlton respectively. The stream now flows almost due south to Crab Mill Farm and then turns west again to join the Bristol Avon, just above Cowbridge to the east of Malmesbury.

History

at Lydiard Millicent was recorded in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

in 1086.Domesday Book Other mill buildings at Crab Mill and Garsdon Mill survive but not in working order.

Hydrology

The brook has a mean flow of as recorded 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 ...

gauging station at Crabb Mill. No maximum flow is recorded but a minimum of zero was recorded on 20 September 1976, during the 1976 heatwave.

References

{{authority control Rivers of Wiltshire 1Woodbridge