The River Box is a small river, in length, that flows through

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

, England. It is a tributary of the River Stour.

Toponymy

The present name is a back-formation from Boxford. A previous name ''Amalburna'' is found in an Old English text dated after 991, published in the ''Cartularium Saxonicum'' (p. 1289). Eilert Ekwall discusses various possible roots, including the British (i.e. pre-English) root ''ambro'' meaning "water".

Course

The river rises to the north of

Little Waldingfield Little Waldingfield is a village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. Located two miles from its sister village, Great Waldingfield, it is part of the Babergh district, and includes the hamlet of Humble Green. Around half the village is a des ...

, near to where two other small streams also rise, which converge with the Box at Upsher Green. From this point the river flows south-east, past

Edwardstone Edwardstone is a village and civil parish in the Babergh district, in the county of Suffolk, England. The parish contains the hamlets of Mill Green, Priory Green, Round Maple and Sherbourne Street, and Edwardstone Woods, a Site of Special Scie ...

towards the large village of Boxford, where it is crossed by the A1071. The river then continues in the same direction and passes a number of villages and hamlets, which are suffixed by the name street. These include Stone Street and to the south of Polstead, Mill Street. The river then passes Scotland Street before reaching the village of

Thorington Street Thorington Street is a large hamlet on the B1068 road, in the Babergh district, in the English county of Suffolk. The hamlet is part of the civil parish of Stoke-by-Nayland, and is located in between the villages of Stoke-by-Nayland and Higham. ...

, and Thorington Hall. It continues flowing southeast to meet the Stour, between Langham and Higham, which is also close to the confluence of the

River Brett The River Brett is a river in Suffolk, England. Its source is in the villages to the north of Lavenham and it flows through Hadleigh to its confluence with the River Stour via Monks Eleigh Monks Eleigh is a village and a civil parish in B ...

and Stour.

Hydrology

Since 1960 the flow of the River Box, has been measured in its middle reaches at a flume near Polstead. The fifty four year record shows that the

catchment A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the ...

of to the gauging station yields an average flow of . The highest river level recorded was in January 1998 with a height of through the flume, which was estimated to have a flow of . The catchment upstream of the gauging station has an average annual rainfall of and a maximum altitude of . Land use is mostly rural, consisting of arable farming. The River Box has been classed as having moderate ecological quality under the

Water Framework Directive The Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC is an EU directive which commits European Union member states to achieve good qualitative and quantitative status of all water bodies (including marine waters up to one nautical mile from shore) by 2015. ...

. This is the middle band in the five part framework scale, which ranges from high, good, and moderate, through to poor and finally bad.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Box, River Rivers of Suffolk Babergh District