The Aller Brook is a stream that flows for through

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

, England. It is a primary tributary of the

River Teign The River Teign is a river in the county of Devon, England. It is long and rises on Dartmoor, becomes an estuary just below Newton Abbot and reaches the English Channel at Teignmouth. Toponymy The river-name ''Teign'' is first attested in a ...

, which it joins near

Newton Abbot Newton Abbot is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish on the River Teign in the Teignbridge, Teignbridge District of Devon, England. Its population was 24,029 in 2011, and was estimated at 26,655 in 2019. It grew rapidly in ...

Etymology

The name of the brook is first attested in around 1540, as ''Aller water''; the name ''Aller brook'' is first attested in 1577. The name comes from the name of a village, given in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 as ''Alre'' (which in turn comes from the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

word , "

alder Alders are trees of the genus ''Alnus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The genus includes about 35 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, a few reaching a large size, distributed throughout the north temperate zone with a few species ex ...

").Eilert Ekwall, ''English River-names'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928), p. 9.

Course

The brook rises to the south of

Daccombe Coffinswell is a small village in South Devon, England, just off the A380, the busy Newton Abbot to Torquay road. It lies within Teignbridge District Council. Coffinswell has a church dedicated to Saint Bartholomew with a Norman font. Near the ...

, near Coffinswell, and initially flows due west, until it reaches the village of

Kingskerswell Kingskerswell (formerly Kings Carswell, or Kings Kerswell) is a village and civil parish within Teignbridge local government district in the south of Devon, England. The village grew up where an ancient track took the narrowest point across a m ...

, where it turns north to flow through the Aller vale. It is joined by a stream on the left which drains

Abbotskerswell Abbotskerswell is a village and civil parish in the English county of Devon. The village is in the north part of the parish and is located two miles (3 km) south of the town of Newton Abbot, from the seaside resort of Torquay and from th ...

and Compton. The brook continues north, passing to the west of

Milber Milber is a suburban area of Newton Abbot and former civil parish, now in the parish of Newton Abbot, in the Teignbridge district of Devon, England. Much of the area comprises a housing estate at . It lies to the east of the town centre, on the ...

, before it reaches Newton Abbot. Originally the brook took a meandering course through this marshy area, but in the 1980s it was forced to run alongside the

A380 road The A380 is a road in South West England, connecting the Torbay area to the Devon Expressway, and hence to the rest of Great Britain's main road network. Route The A380 leaves the A38 at Kennford, some from that road's junction with the M5 ...

in a straight channel. The area is now a local nature reserve, situated between the town and the Buckland estate. At the end of the reserve the brook enters the

Teign Estuary The River Teign is a river in the county of Devon, England. It is long and rises on Dartmoor, becomes an estuary just below Newton Abbot and reaches the English Channel at Teignmouth. Toponymy The river-name ''Teign'' is first attested in an ...

at the Templer Way footbridge. The water level of the stream has been measured in Kingskerswell since 2004, normal levels are between and . The maximum recorded level was in November 2012.

Ecology

The brook has been classed as having both good ecological and chemical quality under the

Water Framework Directive The Water Framework Directive (WFD; 2000/60/EC) is an EU directive to establish a framework for the protection of all water bodies (including marine waters up to one nautical mile from shore) by 2015. The WFD establishes a programme and timeta ...

. This is in the upper band in the five-part framework scale, which ranges from high, good, and moderate, through to poor and finally bad. Wildlife including dragonflies, kingfishers and otters have been identified within the nature reserve. There is also a notable cluster of Bee Orchids (''Ophrys apifera'') within the reserve. The recent construction of the Kingskerswell bypass along the Aller valley, required various environmental measures to be included due to the local wildlife. This included the construction of a specially designed tunnel for otters, which will help them navigate beneath the new carriageway when their normal routes, such as culverts are flooded and inaccessible due to high brook levels.

References

External links

Aller Brook water levels at Kingskerswell
{{authority control Tributaries of the Teign Rivers of Devon Local Nature Reserves in Devon 1Aller