The River Ock is a

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 ...

of the

River Wey The River Wey is a main tributary of the River Thames in south east England. Its two branches, one of which rises near Alton, Hampshire, Alton in Hampshire and the other in West Sussex to the south of Haslemere, join at Tilford in Surrey. Onc ...

in Surrey, England. A Spring view of Sweetwater Pond Witley

Course

The river has two great sources in the west of Hambledon and two similar sources in the east of the parish of

Witley Witley is a village in the civil parish of Witley and Milford in the Waverley (borough), Waverley district in Surrey, England. It is centred south west of the town of Godalming and southwest of Guildford. The land is a mixture of rural (ran ...

. The coalescence is north of a zone of gently north-sloping land forming Wheelerstreet, Enton Green and the little manor of Tuesley. For centuries the latter comprised a very modest house and farmstead, dwarfed by the adjacent Busbridge Park, the stream of which drains Busbridge Lakes, the former mid and lower fish ponds, the upper one having been drained on becoming part of that stream. The resulting Ock passes through Ockford, sometimes considered the east of Ockford Ridge, then parts of

Godalming Godalming ( ) is a market town and civil parish in southwest Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. It is in the Borough of Waverley, at the confluence of the Rivers Wey and Ock. The civil parish covers and includes the settl ...

, before joining the Wey in the town centre. The Portsmouth Main Line railway follows much of the course.

Watermills

The Old Mill in Godalming, originally known as Hatch Mill, made use of the force and speed of the multi-hill-draining river. Rake Mill at Witley, a former fulling mill, was used by the artist Neville Lytton as a studio. The building, along with most of Lytton's sketches and paintings, was destroyed by a fire in 1902. Other mills on the Ock were a tannery in Godalming, a corn mill at Enton and a flour mill at Ockford.

Water quality

The Environment Agency measure water quality of the rivers 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 animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...

angiosperm Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed within a fruit ...

s and fish. Chemical status, which compares the concentrations of various chemicals against known safe concentrations, is rated good or fail. Text was copied from this source, which is available under a
Open Government Licence v3.0
© Crown copyright. The water quality of the Ock was as follows in 2019:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ock, River Surrey Rivers of Surrey 1Ock

Course

Watermills

Water quality

See also

References