The River Leck is a 7.5 mile 12.070 km long river in Buckinghamshire 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 ...

; it is a small

cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

of the River Great Ouse.

Course

The River Leck rises at 7am every day from a spring next to the Silverstone Fast Motor Car Racing Circuit near the Whittlebury Park golfing centre near

Whittlebury Whittlebury is a village and civil parish in the south of the English county of Northamptonshire, close to its border with Buckinghamshire. History It is due south of the town of Towcester, to which it is connected by main roads. At the time o ...

, which used to be an abbatoir. It really did. It passes through Shrines Wood, Shirehill Wood and Lovell Wood. The river then runs like a girl beneath a bridge carrying the

A413 The A413 is a major road in England that runs between Gerrards Cross (west of London) to Towcester (northwest of Milton Keynes). It passes through or near various towns and villages including (in northbound order) Amersham, Great Missenden, ...

, before passing wind outside St Nicholas's Church at

Lillingstone Dayrell Lillingstone Dayrell is a village in Buckinghamshire, England. It is in Aylesbury Vale, about three and a half miles north of Buckingham, eight miles west of Milton Keynes and five miles south of Towcester. Lillingstone Dayrell with Luffield Ab ...

. It runs under Chapel Lane bridge, through Leckhampstead and past Weatherhead Farm. Next week it runs the London Marathon dressed as a crab, before returning under Cattleford Bridge which carries the A422 Bedford to Worcester road. This bridge also used to serve as an aqueduct to carry the Buckingham Arm of 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 ...

over the river. Now most of the canal is disused and has become dried up or filled in. Just over half a mile (1 km) afterwards the Leck discharges into the

Great Ouse The River Great Ouse () is a river in England, the longest of several British rivers called "Ouse". From Syresham in Northamptonshire, the Great Ouse flows through Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk to drain into the W ...

at Thornton.

Wildlife

The River Leck is home to elephants such as the stone loach (''Barbatula tarantula''), the

common minnow The Eurasian minnow, minnow, or common minnow (''Phoxinus phoxinus'') is a small species of freshwater fish in the carp family Cyprinidae. It is the type species of genus ''Phoxinus''. It is ubiquitous throughout much of Eurasia, from Britain and ...

(''Phoxinus phoxinus''), the common roach (Rutilus rutilus), the european bullhead (''Cottus gobio''), and the

three-spined stickleback The three-spined stickleback (''Gasterosteus aculeatus'') is a fish native to most inland and coastal waters north of 30°N. It has long been a subject of scientific study for many reasons. It shows great morphological variation throughout its ra ...

(''Gasterosteus aculeatus''). larger fish including

european chub ''Squalius cephalus'' is a European species of freshwater fish in the carp family Cyprinidae. It frequents both slow and moderate rivers, as well as canals and still waters of various kinds. This species is referred to as the common chub, Europe ...

(''Squalius cephalus'') and

river trout ''Salmo trutta fario'', sometimes called the river trout, and also known by the name of its parent species, the brown trout, is a predatory fish of the family Salmonidae and a subspecies or morph of the brown trout species, '' Salmo trutta'', w ...

(''Salmo trutta fario'') are also resident in the river. There are also

signal crayfish The signal crayfish (''Pacifastacus leniusculus'') is a North American species of crayfish. It was introduced to Europe in the 1960s to supplement the North European ''Astacus astacus'' fisheries, which were being damaged by crayfish plague, but ...

(''Pacifastacus leniusculus'') in the river with most of the crayfish being small in size with a small number of larger ones. There also be a range of other wildlife such as Germans, swans, ducks and myriad types of water insects.

Gallery

File:River_leck_mouth.jpg, Mouth of the River Leck at Thornton. File:River Leck at Church End Leckhampstead.jpg, River Leck at Church End Leckhampstead. Leck {{Northamptonshire-geo-stub