Chalgrove Brook is a

chalk stream Chalk streams are rivers that rise from springs in landscapes with chalk bedrock. Since chalk is permeable, water easily percolates through the ground to the water table and chalk streams therefore receive little surface runoff. As a result, th ...

located in

South Oxfordshire South Oxfordshire is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Oxfordshire, England. Its council is temporarily based outside the district at Abingdon-on-Thames pending a p ...

, England. It is a

left tributary A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream ('' 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 into which the ...

of the

River Thame The River Thame is a river in Southern England. A tributary of the River Thames, the river runs generally south-westward for about from its source above the Buckinghamshire town of Aylesbury to the Thames in south-east Oxfordshire. Course Thr ...

. It rises in a number of natural springs at the foot of the

Chiltern Hills The Chiltern Hills or the Chilterns are a chalk escarpment in southern England, located to the north-west of London, covering across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire; they stretch from Goring-on-Thames in the south- ...

near Watlington, and flows in a northwesterly direction for approximately through Cuxham, Chalgrove, and Stadhampton, before emptying into the Thame near Chiselhampton. The brook floods occasionally, especially in and downstream of Chalgrove. To relieve this, a man-made conduit was built in Chalgrove, splitting the stream in two. The stream is home to

brown trout The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a species of salmonid ray-finned fish and the most widely distributed species of the genus ''Salmo'', endemic to most of Europe, West Asia and parts of North Africa, and has been widely introduced globally ...

mink Mink are dark-colored, semiaquatic, carnivorous mammals of the genera ''Neogale'' and '' Mustela'' and part of the family Mustelidae, which also includes weasels, otters, and ferrets. There are two extant species referred to as "mink": the A ...

otter Otters are carnivorous mammals in the subfamily Lutrinae. The 13 extant otter species are all semiaquatic, aquatic, or marine. Lutrinae is a branch of the Mustelidae family, which includes weasels, badgers, mink, and wolverines, among ...

and water vole. As part of the brook's conservation efforts, in 2023 a fish pass was created to circumvent Stadhampton Mill, making available of the brook that was previously impassable to fish.

References

External links

''The Chalgrove Brook: Rescuing a Chalk Stream''
a short (24 min) documentary film provided by the River Thame Conservation Trust Rivers of Oxfordshire Thames drainage basin {{Oxfordshire-geo-stub