River Lambourn
River Lambourn | |
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Location | |
Country | England |
Counties | Berkshire |
Towns | Lambourn, Great Shefford, Welford, Newbury |
Physical characteristics | |
Source | |
• location | Lambourn, Berkshire, United Kingdom |
• coordinates | 51°30′58″N 1°32′15″W / 51.51606°N 1.53750°W |
• elevation | 130 m (430 ft) |
Mouth | River Kennet |
• location | Newbury, Berkshire, United Kingdom |
• coordinates | 51°24′08″N 1°17′48″W / 51.40236°N 1.2968°W |
• elevation | 70 m (230 ft) |
Notification 1995[1] | | |
Location map | Magic Map |
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The River Lambourn is a chalk stream in the English county of Berkshire. It rises in the Berkshire Downs near its namesake village of Lambourn and is a tributary of the River Kennet, which is itself a tributary of the River Thames.
The river is a 28.9-hectare (71-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest[1][2] and Special Protection Area under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds.[3]
Perennial River
The upper reaches of the river are seasonal, with a
Lambourn Valley Way
The Lambourn Valley Way from the Uffington White Horse to Newbury generally follows the River Lambourn from Lambourn to Donnington Castle, in many places using the embankments of the old Lambourn Valley Railway.
Upper Lambourn and Lynch Wood
The highest source of the Lambourn is on the Maddle Road in the village of
Lambourn to Thatcham
The river leaves the wood and enters
Flow regime
The River Lambourn is almost unique for a chalk stream in southern England in that its flow regime remains near-natural in form; not being significantly modified by groundwater abstraction. Ironically, this situation developed because of a major groundwater abstraction project. In the 1960s the long term water supply situation for London was regarded as vulnerable and one avenue investigated to rectify this was to use untapped water resources naturally stored in the chalk aquifer of low population density areas of south east England. One such area was the West Berkshire Downs, including the catchment of the River Lambourn. The plan was to abstract groundwater from the chalk aquifer during times of drought and then use the existing river system as a natural conduit to transport the water to London, via the River Kennet and the River Thames.[4]
An area in the catchment of the River Lambourn was selected as a pilot study to assess the feasibility of the project, and the Lambourn Valley Pilot Scheme was undertaken between 1967 and 1970. The final conclusion from the pilot study was that the overall scheme appeared feasible and a significant number of large abstraction boreholes and observation boreholes, together with pipelines and control equipment, were installed in the Lambourn catchment and also in other nearby river catchments. The project, named the Thames Groundwater Scheme, was completed in 1976 to coincide with the most serious drought in 50 years, but on final testing of the scheme it was found that the effective increase in river flow downstream was minimal, and essentially the project was a failure.[4]
Almost all of the infrastructure for the project (now known as the West Berkshire Groundwater Scheme) is still in place and maintained, albeit on a rather shoestring budget. But the lasting legacy of the scheme is that the catchment has been preserved as a near-natural groundwater system, almost totally unaffected by groundwater abstractions. This factor made it an ideal candidate for selection as one of the flagship research sites for the NERC LOCAR research project investigating permeable (i.e. groundwater dominated) catchments.[4]
The Second Battle of Newbury, 1644
In 1644 the Royalist Army of
See also
- List of rivers in England
References
- ^ a b c d "Designated Sites View: River Lambourn". Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Natural England. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
- ^ "Map of River Lambourn". Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Natural England. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
- ^ "Designated Sites View: River Lambourn". Special Protection Areas. Natural England. Retrieved 5 October 2019.
- ^ a b c pp81-82, Elizabeth Porter, Water Management in England and Wales, Cambridge University Press, 1979
External links
- "River Lambourn citation" (PDF). Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Natural England.