The Kennet is a tributary of the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, s ...
in Southern England. Most of the river is straddled by the
North Wessex Downs
The North Wessex Downs are an area of chalk downland landscapes located in the English counties of Berkshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire. The North Wessex Downs has been designated as a National Landscape (formerly known as Area of ...
AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). The lower reaches have been made navigable as the Kennet Navigation, which – together with the
Avon Navigation, the
Kennet and Avon Canal
The Kennet and Avon Canal is a waterway in southern England with an overall length of , made up of two lengths of Navigability, navigable river linked by a canal. The name is used to refer to the entire length of the navigation rather than sol ...
and the Thames – links the cities of
Bristol
Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...
and
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
.
The length from near its sources west of
Marlborough
Marlborough or the Marlborough may refer to:
Places Australia
* Marlborough, Queensland
* Principality of Marlborough, a short-lived micronation in 1993
* Marlborough Highway, Tasmania; Malborough was an historic name for the place at the sou ...
, Wiltshire down to
Woolhampton, Berkshire is a biological
Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...
(SSSI).
This is primarily from an array of rare plants and animals completely
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...
to
chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...
y watercourses.
When
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...
had second-tier local authorities, one,
Kennet District, took the name of the river.
Etymology
The pronunciation (and spelling) was as the Kunnit (or Cunnit).
[ This is likely derived from the Roman settlement in the upper valley floor, Cunetio (in the later large village of Mildenhall). Latin scholars state Cunetio is very unlikely to be a Latin derivation, meaning it is a Celtic British name, like most Roman town names in Britain.] The frequent Celtic stem "''cun-''" means "hound", as in the modern Welsh ''ci, cŵn'' "dog".
Course
One of the Kennet's sources is Swallowhead Spring near Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, and others are springs north of Avebury
Avebury () is a Neolithic henge monument containing three stone circles, around the village of Avebury in Wiltshire, in south-west England. One of the best-known prehistoric sites in Britain, it contains the largest megalithic stone circle in ...
near the small villages of Uffcott and Broad Hinton. These then converge. In these early stages, the Kennet passes close by prehistoric sites, including Avebury Henge, West Kennet Long Barrow
The West Kennet Long Barrow, also known as South Long Barrow, is a chambered long barrow near the village of Avebury in the south-western English county of Wiltshire. Probably constructed in the thirty-seventh century BC, during Britain's Early ...
and Silbury Hill. The land drained by the headwaters normally has a deep water table (being in the North Wessex Downs
The North Wessex Downs are an area of chalk downland landscapes located in the English counties of Berkshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire. The North Wessex Downs has been designated as a National Landscape (formerly known as Area of ...
which is mostly chalk as the upper subsoil), thus many stretches are winterbournes when and where precipitation is low and surrounding soils are not so dense with impermeables as to form a surface spring.
The river flows through the towns of Marlborough
Marlborough or the Marlborough may refer to:
Places Australia
* Marlborough, Queensland
* Principality of Marlborough, a short-lived micronation in 1993
* Marlborough Highway, Tasmania; Malborough was an historic name for the place at the sou ...
, Hungerford and Newbury before flowing into the Thames on the reach above Sonning Lock
Sonning Lock is a lock (water transport), lock and associated weir situated on the River Thames at the village of Sonning near Reading, Berkshire, Reading, Berkshire, England. The first lock was built by the Thames Navigation Commission in 1 ...
in central Reading
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifacete ...
, Berkshire.
The Og joins at Marlborough and the Dun enters at Hungerford, followed by the River Lambourn, Enborne
Enborne is a village and civil parish, in West Berkshire, England. The River Enborne shares its name, although it does not run through the village; rather, it runs through and rises near the nearby village of Enborne Row. The village name has ha ...
and the Foudry Brook. For six miles (10 km) west of Reading's centre, the Kennet, being barraged to maintain its longest heads of water, has a semi-natural secondary channel (a long leat
A leat (; also lete or leet, or millstream) is the name, common in the south and west of England and in Wales, for an artificial watercourse or aqueduct dug into the ground, especially one supplying water to a watermill or its mill pond. Othe ...
, a corollary), the Holy Brook. This powered the mills belonging to Reading Abbey.
Navigation
The Horseshoe Bridge at Kennet Mouth, a timber-clad iron-truss structure, was built in 1891 as a way for horses towing barges along the Thames to cross the Kennet.
Going upstream, the first mile of the river, from Kennet Mouth to the High Bridge in Reading, has been navigable since at least the 13th century, providing wharf
A wharf ( or wharfs), quay ( , also ), staith, or staithe is a structure on the shore of a harbour or on the bank of a river or canal where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers. Such a structure includes one or more Berth (mo ...
age for both the townspeople and Reading Abbey. Originally this short stretch of navigable river was under the control of the Abbey; today, including Blake's Lock, it is administered by the Environment Agency
The Environment Agency (EA) is a non-departmental public body, established in 1996 and sponsored by the United Kingdom government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with responsibilities relating to the protection and enha ...
as if it were part of the River Thames.
From High Bridge through to Newbury, the river was made navigable between 1718 and 1723 under the supervision of the engineer John Hore
John HoreAlternative spellings of Hore's surname include "Hoar" and "Hoare" (baptised 13 March 1680 – 12 April 1763Other sources give Hore's year of birth as 1690, and year of death as 1762) was an English engineer, best known for making the Ri ...
of Newbury. Known as the Kennet Navigation, this stretch of the river is now administered by the Canal & River Trust
The Canal & River Trust (CRT), branded as in Wales, holds the guardianship of 2,000 miles of canals and rivers, together with reservoirs and a wide range of heritage buildings and structures, in England and Wales. Launched on 12 July 2012, the ...
as part of the Kennet and Avon Canal
The Kennet and Avon Canal is a waterway in southern England with an overall length of , made up of two lengths of Navigability, navigable river linked by a canal. The name is used to refer to the entire length of the navigation rather than sol ...
. Throughout the navigation, stretches of natural river bed alternate with of artificially created lock
Lock(s) or Locked may refer to:
Common meanings
*Lock and key, a mechanical device used to secure items of importance
*Lock (water navigation), a device for boats to transit between different levels of water, as in a canal
Arts and entertainme ...
cuts, and a series of locks including County
A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...
, Fobney, Southcote, Burghfield, Garston, Sheffield
Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...
, Sulhamstead and Tyle Mill, to overcome a rise of .
Wildlife
The River Kennet is a haven for plants and animals. Its course takes it through the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the river between Marlborough and Woolhampton is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...
(SSSI). The protection that this status affords the Kennet means that endangered species of plants and animals can be found here. The white drifts of water crowfoot (''Ranunculus
''Ranunculus'' is a large genus of about 1750 species of flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae. Members of the genus are known as buttercups, spearworts and water crowfoots.
The genus is distributed worldwide, primarily in temperate an ...
'') in early summer are characteristic of chalk and limestone rivers; there are superb displays by the footbridge at Chilton Foliat, and by the road bridge in Hungerford.
Animal species such as the water vole, grass snake
The grass snake (''Natrix natrix''), sometimes called the ringed snake or water snake, is a Eurasian semi-aquatic non- venomous colubrid snake. It is often found near water and feeds almost exclusively on amphibians.
Subspecies
Many subspecie ...
, reed bunting, brown trout
The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a species of salmonid ray-finned fish and the most widely distributed species of the genus ''Salmo'', endemic to most of Europe, West Asia and parts of North Africa, and has been widely introduced globally ...
, and brook lamprey flourish here, despite being in decline in other parts of the country. Crayfish
Crayfish are freshwater crustaceans belonging to the infraorder Astacidea, which also contains lobsters. Taxonomically, they are members of the superfamilies Astacoidea and Parastacoidea. They breathe through feather-like gills. Some spe ...
are very common in parts of the river. However, most, if not all, are now the alien American signal crayfish, having escaped from crayfish farms, which has replaced the native white-clawed crayfish
''Austropotamobius pallipes'' is an endangered European freshwater crayfish, and the only crayfish native to the British Isles. Its common names include white-clawed crayfish and Atlantic stream crayfish.
Distribution
It is found from the easter ...
in most southern rivers, although a small population still survives in the River Lambourn. Many hundreds of insect species can be found in and around the River Kennet. There are large hatches of mayflies
Mayflies (also known as shadflies or fishflies in Canada and the upper Midwestern United States, as Canadian soldiers in the American Great Lakes region, and as up-winged flies in the United Kingdom) are aquatic insects belonging to the order ...
, whose long-tailed, short-lived adults are a favourite food of trout; many species of water beetle and insect larvae. Caddisflies
The caddisflies (order Trichoptera) are a group of insects with aquatic larvae and terrestrial adults. There are approximately 14,500 described species, most of which can be divided into the suborders Integripalpia and Annulipalpia on the basis ...
are also numerous, especially in the late summer. Alongside the river, the reed beds, grasses and other vegetation support other species, including the scarlet tiger moth, poplar hawk moths and privet hawks.
Resource uses
Throughout its history, water mills on the Kennet have been a source of power for pre-industrial and industrial activities. In places the river has been built up to provide an additional head of water to drive the mills. Three mills remain in Ramsbury alone, and there are many disused or former mill sites, such as at Southcote, Burghfield, Sulhamstead, Aldermaston
Aldermaston ( ) is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. In the 2011 census, the parish had a population of 1,015. The village is in the Kennet Valley and bounds Hampshire to the south. It is approximately from Newbury, Basin ...
, Thatcham
Thatcham is a market town and civil parish in West Berkshire, England. It is situated in the valley of the River Kennet east of Newbury, Berkshire, Newbury, west of Reading, Berkshire, Reading and west of London. The town has a long history d ...
, Newbury, and Hungerford. Aside from the mills, in the 17th and 18th centuries the river water was also used for the brewing and tanning industries of Ramsbury and Marlborough.[http://www.riverkennet.org/about_river_kennet.php Action for the River Kennet website]
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 animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...
s, angiosperm
Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed within a fruit ...
s and fish. Chemical status, which compares the concentrations of various chemicals against known safe concentrations, is rated good or fail.
Water quality of the River Kennet in 2019:
Insect kill of July 2013
In July 2013 the Environment Agency
The Environment Agency (EA) is a non-departmental public body, established in 1996 and sponsored by the United Kingdom government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with responsibilities relating to the protection and enha ...
investigated an insect kill which resulted when a small quantity (estimated to be two teaspoonfuls (10 millilitres)), of chlorpyrifos
Chlorpyrifos (CPS), also known as chlorpyrifos ethyl, is an organophosphate pesticide that has been used on crops, animals, in buildings, and in other settings, to kill several pests, including insects and worms. It acts on the nervous systems ...
, an organophosphate
In organic chemistry, organophosphates (also known as phosphate esters, or OPEs) are a class of organophosphorus compounds with the general structure , a central phosphate molecule with alkyl or aromatic substituents. They can be considered ...
insecticide
Insecticides are pesticides used to kill insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against insect eggs and larvae, respectively. The major use of insecticides is in agriculture, but they are also used in home and garden settings, i ...
used in ant poison and available in garden centres, was flushed into the river killing the freshwater shrimp Freshwater shrimp are any shrimp which live in fresh water.
This includes:
*Any Caridea (shrimp) which live in fresh water, especially the family Atyidae
*Species in the genus '' Macrobrachium''
:*'' Macrobrachium ohione'', the Ohio River shrimp
:* ...
and most other arthropods on the stretch of the river between Marlborough
Marlborough or the Marlborough may refer to:
Places Australia
* Marlborough, Queensland
* Principality of Marlborough, a short-lived micronation in 1993
* Marlborough Highway, Tasmania; Malborough was an historic name for the place at the sou ...
and Hungerford. The dead insects sank to the bottom of the river and rotted, resulting in a bad smell, but no fish seemed to have been killed. However, without insects and shrimps to feed on, many of the fish, birds and amphibians that use the river would be likely to fade away and die. The poison was diluted and removed by the flow of the stream.
See also
* Tributaries of the River Thames
This article lists the tributaries of the River Thames from the sea to the source, in England. There are also secondary lists of backwaters of the river itself and the waterways branching off.
Note: the River Medway shares the saline lower ...
* List of rivers in England
* Locks on the Kennet and Avon Canal
Notes and references
;Notes
;References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kennet, River
Kennet and Avon Canal
Geography of Reading, Berkshire
Rivers of Berkshire
Rivers of Wiltshire
River navigations in the United Kingdom
Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Wiltshire
Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Berkshire
Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1995
West Berkshire District
Tributaries of the River Thames