The River Sherford, also frequently called the Sherford River, is one of the four main rivers flowing into

Poole Harbour Poole Harbour is a large natural harbour in Dorset, southern England, with the town of Poole on its shores. The harbour is a drowned valley ( ria) formed at the end of the last ice age and is the estuary of several rivers, the largest being th ...

in the county of

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It is about 12 kilometres long and drains over the

tertiary Tertiary (from Latin, meaning 'third' or 'of the third degree/order..') may refer to: * Tertiary period, an obsolete geologic period spanning from 66 to 2.6 million years ago * Tertiary (chemistry), a term describing bonding patterns in organic ch ...

beds near the harbour.''Poole Harbour Catchment Information''
at www.wessexwater.co.uk. Retrieved 6 Nov 2016.

Course

It rises at a spring in the hamlet of Whitefield, west of

Lytchett Matravers Lytchett Matravers is a large village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Dorset, England. The United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census recorded the parish as having 1,439 households and a population of 3,424. Etymology The name of ...

, flows southwards into Morden Park lake and then eastwards, passing under the A351 before discharging into Lytchett Bay as the Rock Lea River on the northern side of

.OS topographic map, 1:25,000 series, No. OL15 Purbeck & South Dorset.

Water quality

The Sherford's water body status in 2013 was graded "poor" 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 ...

.Wessex Water, ''Poole Harbour Catchment Initiative: Catchment Plan: Update - May 2014''. Appendix 2.

References

Sherford 1Sherford {{England-river-stub