The Pipp Brook is a left-bank tributary of the

River Mole The River Mole is a tributary of the River Thames in southern England. It rises in West Sussex near Gatwick Airport and flows northwest through Surrey for to the Thames at Hampton Court Palace. The river gives its name to the Surrey distri ...

, Surrey, England. It rises at two main springs north of

Leith Hill Leith Hill in southern England is the highest summit of the Greensand Ridge, approximately southwest of Dorking, Surrey and southwest of central London. It reaches above sea level, and is the second highest point in southeast England, after ...

on the

Greensand Ridge The Greensand Ridge, also known as the Wealden Greensand is an extensive, prominent, often wooded, mixed greensand/sandstone escarpment in south-east England. Forming part of the Weald, a former dense forest in Sussex, Surrey and Kent, it r ...

, then descends steeply in a northward direction, before flowing eastwards along the

Vale of Holmesdale Holmesdale, also known as the Vale of Holmesdale, is a valley in South-East England that falls between the hill ranges of the North Downs and the Greensand Ridge of the Weald, in the counties of Kent and Surrey. It stretches from Folkestone o ...

. It runs to the north of Dorking High Street, before discharging into the Mole at Pixham. The Milton Brook, which rises at a tri-forked source lower than that of the Pipp Brook, is the principal tributary.

Course

Sources

*SW of Waterden Wood on the boundary of Crockers Farm

smallholding A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology ...

, Coldharbour, Surrey. *Mag's Well marking the border of Wotton and Westcott (before the 19th century Westcott was the western hamlet of Dorking) 500m north-east of Leith Hill Tower flowing first north to form one many ravines in the forest that covers all the northern slopes of

, Wotton Common, an indented, tapering area with a notable waterfall for the longer stream rising here to the west, the Tillingbourne. The geological varying depth of greensand top layers caused by erosion towards the underlying clay means that there is no uniform spring line in this part of the

. The tower is the second highest point in the South-East of England. The Pipp Brook's main tributary, the Milton Brook rises at three close points in farmland on the indented north-east edge of the forest. During the early nineteenth century the sulphate-rich (chalybeate) waters of the Mag's Well spring were attributed by a countryside travel writer as having aided a person's recovery.

Later Course

Both the Pipp Brook and the larger

River Tillingbourne The River Tillingbourne (also known as the Tilling Bourne) runs along the south side of the North Downs and joins the River Wey at Guildford. Its source is a mile south of Tilling Springs to the north of Leith Hill at and it runs through Friday ...

drain the northern slopes of Leith Hill and the watershed between the two rivers (which runs roughly north–south, marks the boundary between Westcott (which the brook drains entirely) and much larger Wotton.Note that the Tillingbourne flows westwards to meet 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 in Hampshire and the other in West Sussex to the south of Haslemere, join at Tilford in Surrey. Once combined the ...

south of Guildford, whereas the Pipp Brook turns eastwards to meet the River Mole at Pixham. The Pipp Brook runs almost due east along its Dorking stretch north of much of the town and south of the steep scarp of the

North Downs The North Downs are a ridge of chalk hills in south east England that stretch from Farnham in Surrey to the White Cliffs of Dover in Kent. Much of the North Downs comprises two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs): the Surrey Hills a ...

at Ranmore Common before joining the Mole at Pixham.Pixham was a hamlet of Dorking before achieving chapelry status and later full ecclesiastical parish status The area around the confluence is the subject of occasional riparian (river) flooding as the rate of descent of the Mole decreases significantly and at the Mole Gap becomes or became subterranean, depending on amount of sedimentation. The Pipp Brook itself has no sewage treatment works, few plains which it drains and as such an extremely narrow and low risk area of riparian flooding. These factors are instead present as to a few parcels of land of east Pixham sometimes considered Dorking by the national media based on a 2010s shorthand by the Environment Agency which has a 'Dorking Flood Area' comprising the sewage works, a handful of properties in Pixham and much of Brockham and Betchworth well upstream along the Mole to the east which are separated by more than a mile from Dorking and are narrowly in its post town.Flood Risk Map of all surrounding areas - showing level 3 low risk
Accessed 2015-04-15.

Watermills

By the 19th century six grain mills stood on the river: Rookery, Westcott, Milton Court, Parsonage, Pippbrook and Pixham Mills. All were defunct by the mid-20th century when bread production was widely commercialised and the product nationally was transformed to slow its staleness. Pippbrook Mill and Pixham Mill survive and are Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

Water quality

The Environment Agency measures the water quality of the river systems 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 a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

s, angiosperms 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. Water quality of the Pipp Brook in 2019:

References

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pipp Brook Rivers of Surrey 1Pipp