{"id":15881,"date":"2022-05-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=15881"},"modified":"2022-05-12T11:25:23","modified_gmt":"2022-05-12T09:25:23","slug":"pure-waters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/2022\/05\/05\/pure-waters\/","title":{"rendered":"Pure waters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The lovely River Mimram, Hertfordshire\u2019s jewel of a chalk stream, rises in the chalk downs near cress beds in Whitwell and flows north of Welwyn Garden City to join the River Lea (also a chalk stream) at Hertford <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

CHALK STREAMS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Pure waters<\/h2>\n\n

Beautiful and globally rare, healthy chalk streams teem with life, from brown trout to water voles and dancing mayflies. Charles Rangeley-Wilson<\/strong> celebrates one of England\u2019s greatest natural marvels \u2013 and explains how we can best protect them<\/p>\n\n

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The River Nar in Norfolk, where author Charles recently rewilded over two kilometres of the stream, restoring meanders, pools and gravel riffles <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

I<\/span>f you live south and east of a line drawn between the western edge of Dorset and the north-east corner of Yorkshire, the chances are you live close to a chalk stream, even if you may not know it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

I grew up within a few miles of one \u2013 the Hogsmill Stream in Kingstonupon-Thames \u2013 and spent my summers exploring and fishing several more in Norfolk, without ever knowing that these were chalk streams. I fell in love with their clear flows and the many fish that swam in them, nonetheless. Not until I left university and started teaching in Dorset did I get to more fully understand the significance of this very English type of river.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

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The River Itchen at Ovington, Hampshire, with Itchen Stoke Mill on the left and blunt-fruited water starwort visible below the surface <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Wessex holds many of the really well-known chalk streams \u2013 the Frome,Avon, Test and Itchen \u2013 and their many tributaries. But, in fact, there are chalk streams throughout half of England, in Sussex, Kent, Oxfordshire, Berkshire,<\/span>Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, and on through Cambridgeshire,Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.<\/span>There are three within Greater London, and over 280 in total. A number that partly defines why they are so special, because it amounts to the majority of chalk streams in the world. We share the stewardship of that global total with Normandy and Denmark.<\/p>\n\n

ANCIENT PEACE<\/span><\/h4>\n\n

The other part of what makes them special can be understood once you are standing beside one. I can take or leave football, so last summer I left it and, knowing that most of the world was watching a certain cup final, I went down to my local chalk stream and sat beside it in the monastic quiet that had enveloped the landscape. I listened to reed buntings, kingfishers, even a distant bittern (no,<\/span>I wasn\u2019t imagining that) and the kissing sounds of trout rising to the surface to pick off mayflies.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cWater from chalk streams is an unvarying 10\u00b0C, it is alkaline, mineral-rich and the flow is constant\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

In the meadow beside me stood the craggy walls of a priory sacked by Henry VIII. Just upstream was a Domesday watermill and a castle built by Seigneur de Varrene, one of William the Conqueror\u2019s loyal henchmen. Sit still for long enough beside a chalk stream and you will see, hear and feel all of this, within the context of a landscape that is, to coin Ted Hughes\u2019 poem about another fishy denizen of chalk streams, \u201cas deep as England\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n\n