The Kentish Stour
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NRA Southern 35 THE KENTISH STOUR NRA 3l Rivers Author, ation Centre National Rivers Authority Offici Southern Region ' ass No Guardians of the Water Environment ^ -jpn No RCUP .... HISTORY ducking stool is displayed in the THE medieval court hall. The widening There are several mills on the river o f the river valley below Chilham course, the majority no longer in suggests that in Prehistoric times KENTISH use and some totally derelict. Most this was the tidal limit of the river. o f the Stour water mills have been The apocryphal reports of a find of STOUR used since records began: Hippopotamus bones at Chartham “Little m ill that clacks would lend support to the theory. So busy by the brook In those remote times, as its name Ground its com and paid its tax suggests, Stourmouth marked the Ever since Domesday Book ” point where the river reached the sea. Thanet was then truly an island When the Romans constructed separated from the mainland by a COURSE AND GEOLOGY Watling Street between Dover and tidal strait known as the Wantsum London they made a ford across the Channel. The Kentish Stour is the major River Stour at what was then The Romans guarded this watercourse in East Kent, which in perhaps the upper limit o f strategic channel at both ends by its various guises originates above navigation. A settlement grew up at forts, Regulbium at the North end Ashford 75 metres above sea level the intersection o f the two routes; and Richborough or “Portus and enters the sea at Fegwell Bay. it prospered and with the passage Rutupis” (itself a small island) There are two main tributaries, o f time and the spread of where the channel reached the East the Great Stour itself, which rises to Christianity it developed into the coast. This site is now inland of the North West of Ashford close to ecclesiastical capital o f England. Sandwich. the small village o f Lenham, and the Becket’s shrine was the source of Longshore drift, the process by East Stour, which rises close to Canterbury’s medieval wealth, but which sand and shingle are moved Folkestone Racecourse, to the the river continued to mould the by the action of wind and tides, South East o f Ashford. Minor physical shape o f the city. Though operated in those days from North tributaries issuing from the Lower the channel was gradually silting up to South. As new material was Greensand and the chalk and shrinking, the water continued deposited across the outlet o f the contribute to the two streams to power mills, some industry and river to the English Channel, the which come together in Ashford. mefct the daily needs o f citizens, river mouth was turned The river then flows in a north supplying their washing water and progressively southwards, easterly direction through Wye, and sewerage system as well as a ready accounting for the first part o f the U through the chalk of the North made moat for the city defences. bend which the tidal river makes Downs to Canterbury. Below Most o f the substantial buildings of today. It was on this spit that Canterbury, the river passes medieval date that have survived, Hengist and Horsa landed in through younger rocks such as apart from the Churches, are to be AD 449 and where Augustine first Brickearth and Thanet Beds. Valley found on or near the river. These brought Christianity to England in deposits are largely alluvial, include the castle, the Franciscan AD 597. In the ensuing period, or comprising fine marine and river and Dominican Priories, the perhaps before, the direction of the alluvium around the old Wantsum charitable hospital foundation longshore drift reversed, possibly Channel, and clay with flints on the called St. Thomas’s Hospital (which due to the disappearance of an chalk dip slopes. Some fifteen is actually built across the river on a island in the vicinity o f the kilometres downstream of Gothic tunnel) and the noble Goodwin Sands. A new shingle Canterbury, the Great Stour is towers o f the Westgate. bank began to form, this time joined by the Little or Lesser Stour The original name o f Sturry the turning the river northwards and at Plucks Gutter. This drains water downstream settlement, is believed completing the U bend around from the South via the Wingham to have been Estura, probably which the river now flows. River and the Nailbourne Stream. derived from the old name of the By 600 AD the deposits had Below Plucks Gutter the river is river AEstur. blocked the port of Richborough known simply as the River Stour By the ninth century Fordwich and around this time a settlement and flows South towards Sandwich was the navigable limit of the river appeared on the newly accreted through a large loop before for trading vessels and enjoyed sandbank appropriately named entering the sea back to the North supremacy as a port until modern Sandwic or Sandwich. Its strategic at Pegwell Bay. times when the creation of the position in relation to the continent The Kentish Stour is a fairly Canterbury to Whitstable railway in destined Sandwich to become one modest sized river with a tidal 1830 put river transport into of the five great English ports, reach of 35 km extending upstream decline. known as the Cinque Ports. to Fordwich Bridge. The non-tidal In its heyday, Fordwich was Around the same time the Great Stour measures 58 km and granted the privilege of a Gylda accretion o f material which had the East Stour 16 km. In the upper Mercatoria ( Merchants Guild) by eroded from the North shore of the reaches both the East Stour and the Henry II and by the early thirteenth Isle of Thanet blocked the northern Great Stour are about 2—3 m wide, century' became a member of the end of the Wantsum Channel. increasing to 5 m at Ashford, 10 m Cinque Ports confederacy. The Sandwich reached its zenith in the to Canterbury and 20—30 m in the ancient crane still stands on the thirteenth century, but with tidal reaches. river bank whilst the ancillary »ROM VUSSINGEN Cartography prepared and published by ESTATE PUBLICATIONS continued siltation due to the with the editorial assistance of the SOUTHERN TOURIST BOARD longshore drift was in decline hy Based upon the ORDNANCE SURVEY maps with the the sixteenth century’. The last sanction of the controller of HM Stationery Office. straw for the port was the wrecking Crown copyright reserved in 1561 o f a large ship belonging to the Pope in the entrance to the Stour. She defied all efforts to remove her and trapped the drifting sands, creating a dangerous bar across the estuary. Today Sandwich lies some two miles from the sea and four by the windings of the river. The tortuous route by which the tidal Stour found its way to the sea aggravated the discharge of floodwater to the sea and in 1776 a flood relief channel known as the Stonar Cut was made across the neck of the hairpin bend. HYDROLOGY the water table is sufficiently high Above Canterbury the river delivered to whoever “owned the to supply them, and which fade Both the Great Stour and the hast receives a number of small dis turn”. The dignitaries sharing the Stour originate on the Weald C.lay when the water table falls. In other charges o f sewage effluent and a privilege included the Mayor, the which is the oldest geological form parts o f the region, and because of substantial discharge of treated Lord Warden, the Archbishop of ation in the catchment. In con their seasonal nature, such streams papermill effluent. The water Canterbury and various members sequence, the upper reaches are are known as winterbournes. quality objective through Canter of the aristocracy and officialdom. In addition to measuring river characteristically flashy; run-off is bury is set at Class 2. The high The Stour is still widely acknow flows, the Resources Department rapid with high peak flows, rhe quality and large volume of sewage ledged as a quality fishery for both o f the NRA measures rainfall and NRA measures flows on both tribut effluent from the modern sewage coarse and game fish, especially in the levels o f underground waters. aries and measures main river flow treatment works (16,000 mVd) the reaches above Canterbury There are twenty-six rain gauges seven km below Ashford at t allows the river to exceed its objec where the river passes through the in the catchment and three Gauging Station where the flow tive and Class IB is achieved for chalk. The NRA has a programme weather stations. The groundwater most o f the year. from the Weald Clay and Lower to install fish passes to help sea lays in three principal aquifers; the Greensand is reinforced by the The tidal Stour receives addi trout and the occasional salmon Lower Greensand, the Chalk and discharge from Ashford Sewage tional quantities of sewage effluent past obstructions on the river. the Lower London Tertiaries. Treatment Works. and a substantial discharge of Passes due for completion include The flow characteristics change industrial effluent from the pharm those at Barton Mill and Kingsmead WATER QUALITY aceutical industry. Water quality in Canterbury. Future passes are as the river enters the North in the estuary as far as Sandwich is Downs where recharge from the The character and quality of the planned for Abbot’s Mill (also in good, and thereafter fair down to Canterbury) and for Chartham chalk springs gives the middle non-tidal reaches o f the Stour the sea at Pegwell Bay.