The River Bourne is the name given to a

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after th ...

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 they ...

in northwest

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

which has a longer

, the Windle Brook, that rises nears

Bagshot Park Bagshot Park is a List of British royal residences, royal residence located near Bagshot, a village south of Windsor, Berkshire, Windsor. It is on Bagshot Heath, a tract of formerly open land in Surrey and Berkshire. Bagshot Park occupies wi ...

in the south of

Swinley Forest Swinley Forest is a large expanse of Crown Estate woodland managed by Forestry England mainly within the civil parishes of Windlesham in Surrey and Winkfield and Crowthorne in Berkshire, England. Coverage Situated to the south-west of Wind ...

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...

, merging with it while flowing through villages north of

Woking Woking ( ) is a town and borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in north-west Surrey, England, around from central London. It appears in Domesday Book as ''Wochinges'', and its name probably derives from that of a Anglo-Saxon settleme ...

; downstream the Bourne joins the Thames near

Weybridge Weybridge () is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge, Elmbridge district in Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. The settlement is recorded as ''Waigebrugge'' and ''Weibrugge'' in the 7th century and the name derives from a cro ...

Course

The River Bourne or The Bourne rises southwest of Bisley in Bisley Common where it joins the longer Trulley Brook which drains Colony Bog and the middle of the Pirbright Ranges, flows between West End and Bisley, skirts the south of

Chobham Chobham is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Surrey Heath, Borough of Surrey Heath in Surrey, England. The village has a small high street area, specialising in traditional trades and motor trades. The River Bourne ...

, makes a meander into rural north Woking and joins the much longer Mill Bourne to the east of

before flowing between Woodham and

Addlestone Addlestone ( or ) is a town in Surrey, England. It is located approximately southwest of London. The town is the administrative centre of the Runnymede (borough), Borough of Runnymede, of which it is the largest settlement. Geography Addlesto ...

, then

New Haw New Haw is a village which is part of the Runnymede (borough), Borough of Runnymede in Surrey, England. It is located approximately south of Addlestone and boxing the compass, southwest by west of London. Geography New Haw borders Byfleet, Ad ...

and

. Finally passing through some of the town, it enters St George's College, Addlestone (formerly Woburn Park) where the River Bourne joins with the River Bourne (Chertsey branch). The River Bourne then by a manmade channel turns east instead of running the final 100m into the Upper Chertsey Reach; joining the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...

below the southern weir of Shepperton Lock and its many islands, which due to the barraging of the Thames provides (as was possible before the Thames weirs were built) a greater fall. Along its lower course, past St George's College, Addlestone (formerly Woburn Park) the river becomes

canalized River engineering is a discipline of civil engineering which studies human intervention in the course, characteristics, or flow of a river with the intention of producing some defined benefit. People have intervened in the natural course and b ...

and flows through 20 gardens of the Hamm Court estate, in the

ecclesiastical parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

of Addlestone and historically civil parish, but adjoining the

border to reach the Thames below Shepperton Lock.

Upper Tributaries

Windle Brook

The Windle Brook is a small river springing at New England Hill,

a forest with some military use in the

Crown Estate The Crown Estate is a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom belonging to the British monarch as a corporation sole, making it "the sovereign's public estate", which is neither government property nor part of the monarch's priva ...

with further nearby sources in

Bagshot Bagshot is a large village in the Surrey Heath borough of Surrey, England, approximately southwest of central London. In the past, Bagshot served as an important staging post between London, Southampton and the West Country, evidenced by the ...

. Brooks of Windlesham merge with the Windle Brook below Windlesham Golf Club then flow through

Windlesham Arboretum Windlesham Arboretum is between the villages of Windlesham and Lightwater in Surrey, United Kingdom, just south of Junction 3 on the M3. The arboretum features lakes, monuments, follies, a small chapel and approximately 22,000 mature and rare ...

, a public space managed by

Surrey Wildlife Trust Surrey Wildlife Trust (SWT) was founded in 1959 as Surrey Naturalists' Trust and it is one of forty-six The Wildlife Trusts, wildlife trusts covering Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man and Alderney. ...

. The brook runs north of

and through

Windlesham Windlesham is a geographically-large village in the Surrey Heath borough of Surrey, England, approximately south west of central London. Its name derives from the Windle Brook, which runs south of the village into Chobham, and the common suffi ...

, providing the latter with its name. During this journey a few lakes are made, including Rapley Lake and just below a private lake with weir in royal

. This stream goes straight eastward until before the M3 turning ESE; the Bourne becomes named the ''Hale Bourne'' when this joins from the southwest, then heads due east.

The Hale Bourne, Lightwater and Chobham

In a hilly, well-wooded strip of public heath adjoining the off-limits Pirbright Ranges

Heath A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and is characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a coole ...

to the south, in

Lightwater Lightwater is a village in the Surrey Heath district of Surrey, England, about southwest of central London. Immediately surrounding towns and villages include Bagshot, Deepcut, Windlesham, Camberley, and West End, Woking. It is bounded to the ...

, the Hale Bourne springs which forms a small lake, Lightwater, surrounded by houses and its flow turns east when it takes on a greater amount of water from the Windle Brook below Broadway Green, Windlebrook and Rectory Farms in Lightwater; then this enlarged Hale Bourne flows into Chobham where it becomes joined by a tributary and known as the Mill Bourne.

The Mill Bourne, Chobham

As soon as joined by Clappers Brook in west Chobham the Hale becomes the Mill Bourne. It passes a recreation ground and Millbourne Bridge through the village centre picking up two main tributaries from the north (as the south is drained by The Bourne, see above), the only named one is Clappers Brook.Map
created by

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

, courtesy of

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

In this straight the Mill Bourne passes Town Mill, the Chobham Museum, Sow Moor and Emmett's Mill before reaching a confluence with The Bourne. This confluence is between the

McLaren Technology Centre The McLaren Technology Centre is the headquarters of the McLaren Group and its subsidiaries, located on a site in Woking, Surrey, England. The complex consists of two buildings: the original McLaren Technology Centre, which acts as the main he ...

grounds and Fairoaks Airport.

Knaphill and Parley Brooks

Waterer's Park marks the start of an additional stream flowing north from Knaphill, the northern suburb of

forming a confluence west of Horsell Common. Just before the confluence is the confluence of the Parley Brook that stems from the Goldsworth Park recreation ground.

Flood Risk

During 12–14 August 2006, much of the civil parish of

suffered from severe

flood A flood is an overflow of water (list of non-water floods, or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant con ...

s due to the River Bourne and the Mill Bourne bursting their banks. The floods were caused by heavy

rainfall Rain is a form of precipitation where water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. ...

and

thunderstorm A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustics, acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorm ...

s across the region that resulted in flooded homes and businesses, power cuts and road closures. This caused the rainfall to run across the land to local

watercourse A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a strea ...

s and low-lying areas. Two months' rainfall fell in one night and local watercourses were unable to cope with the run off so flooded adjacent land, buildings and roads. Concerns were express by residents to the parish council that the flooding in

was exacerbated on a small scale by the use of Field 0081, Pennypot Lane, Chobham as a site for travellers who have covered that area with hardcore to support their mobile homes. This area used to be a water meadow absorbing some floodwater from the River Bourne adjacent to the site. Planning permission for the site was refused as this land was seen as providing a river corridor for the River Bourne.

Surrounding Soil, Elevations and Rainfall

The two main watercourses are once past Lightwater/Bisley 2.5–5 m wide flowing over land which is geologically the remains of the sandy Bagshot or Western Surrey formation, where

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is usually defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural ...

s and organic matter overlie clay, described as "slowly permeable loamy or

peat Peat is an accumulation of partially Decomposition, decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, Moorland, moors, or muskegs. ''Sphagnum'' moss, also called peat moss, is one of the most ...

soils" or "loamy and clayey soils with naturally high groundwater" surrounded by "free-draining naturally wet heath" on higher land, making in the uplands swathes unique, heather, gorse and coniferous habitat interspersed with bogs and brooks.National Soil Resources Institute – Cranfield University
/ref> At Chobham the widest plain of surrounding land forms which is, as drained by ditches and less acidic, fertile and widely used for cultivation. Elevations range as follows: Local annual rainfall is about 635 mm. File:Boggy field beside Mill Bourne - geograph.org.uk - 166244.jpg, alt=Mill Bourne, Field adjoining the Mill Bourne File:Mill Bourne - geograph.org.uk - 166255.jpg, alt=Mill Bourne, Mill Bourne
east stretch
at Emmett's Mill File:Mill Bourne - geograph.org.uk - 166146.jpg, Mill Bourne
west stretch by the Village Mill File:A stream in Chobham - geograph.org.uk - 865848.jpg, alt=Mill Bourne, Mill Bourne
west stretch File:bourne1.jpg, Ford at Lovelands Lane across the river Bourne, south of Penny Pot,

Fishing

Being capable of the grant of private land fishing rights by all adjoining landowners, not being a navigable river, several fishing groups use the river without need for government body permits. Bourne Anglers, for instance is a small fishing club/conservation group, started in 2013. The club has been set up to maintain the river and with kind permission of various landowners has kept stretches a free fishing river.

Notes and references

;Notes ;References

External links

Flood information from Environment AgencySurrey Flood Alert info
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bourne Rivers of Surrey 1Bourne