The River Hooke is a small river in the county of
Dorset
Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of ...
in southern
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
. It runs from its source at
Toller Whelme
Toller Whelme is a small hamlet in Dorset, England, situated in the civil parish of Corscombe approximately east of Beaminster, north of Bridport and north-west of Dorchester. There are seven homes in the hamlet: West Farm, Norcombe Hayes ...
through the villages and hamlets of
Hooke, Kingcombe,
Toller Porcorum
Toller Porcorum () is a village and civil parish in Dorset, England, situated in the Toller valley northwest of Dorchester. In the 2011 census the civil parish—which also includes the small settlements of Higher and Lower Kingcombe to th ...
and
Toller Fratrum
Toller Fratrum () is a very small village and civil parish in Dorset, England, near Maiden Newton, anciently in Tollerford Hundred.
The name is taken from the village's situation on the brook formerly known as the Toller, now called the Hoo ...
to join the
River Frome at
Maiden Newton, a course of some 6 miles. The river was formerly called the River Toller, whence the name of the three Toller villages, as well as of
the hundred of Tollerford. At some point, however, this former name was replaced in use by reference to a particular feature in the river's course: "Hooke" is a derivation of ''hoc'',
Old English for "sharp bend in a stream". It is possible that this description gave the village of Hooke its name, which then transferred to the river by back-formation.
Although the River Hooke is flanked on both sides by
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. Cha ...
slopes of the
Dorset Downs
The Dorset Downs are an area of chalk downland in the centre of the county Dorset in south west England. The downs are the most western part of a larger chalk formation which also includes (from west to east) Cranborne Chase, Salisbury Plain, H ...
, in its course it has cut down to
greensand
Greensand or green sand is a sand or sandstone which has a greenish color. This term is specifically applied to shallow marine sediment that contains noticeable quantities of rounded greenish grains. These grains are called ''glauconies'' and co ...
. According to the Dorset-born author and broadcaster
Ralph Wightman, this has resulted in "many springy and boggy patches which are not typical of chalk valleys." Writing in 1965, Wightman commented that at Hooke village itself "the largest spring I have ever seen used to gush out of the steep hillside, and was immediately used for watercress."
[Wightman, R., ''Portrait of Dorset'', Hale, 1983, p94]
See also
*
Hooke
*
Hooke Court
References
External links
Geology and map of the Hooke Valley*
Hooke
2Hooke
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