FROM SOURCE to SEA: Following the River Parrett. Part One .MAY 2023.
Following our previous explorations from source to sea of a few rivers in Cornwall and France and found this an interesting way to look at the countryside and settlements near the river, we are breaking the three-year hiatus in our activities caused by Covid, the lockdowns and then my health issues, to make a start on following the River Parrett. We know this river in parts but will now ‘join the dots’ and follow its 66 miles from source to sea. We will look at in in sequence, but at different times, so this first section we looked at yesterday on a fine sunny May-day with this late spring now at last beginning to green up.
STAGE 1:The source to Langport May 3rd 2023
We began in the attractive village of Chedington in north Dorset. As is so often the case, there are several springs which feed the young river. They arise on the north-facing slope of the wooded ridge of the Dorset Downs. The source of the River Axe is on the south side of this ridge. It flows in the opposite direction to reach the sea at Axemouth on the south coast of Dorset.
Dominating the village is the imposing listed house, Chedington Court. Built of the local honey-coloured Ham Stone, it stands on the site of a medieval dwelling (1185) but the present house was built in the Jacobean fashion in 1840. It looks north towards Crewkerne with a splendid view across a wide open plain through which the young River Parrett wanders towards the northwest between a patchwork of mostly grassy meadows in largely stock-rearing countryside. The bright yellow of fields of rape in flower was conspicuous, and now silage-making was in full swing, some grassland already cut and carted, was a pale green, with flocks of mixed corvids feeding on the newly-exposed thin remains of the grass crop.
Chedington Court
We followed the ridge overlooking the slightly undulating vale though which the river, as yet a shallow stream no more than four feet across, picked it’s tree-lined way between the fields.
The hedges had Field Maple a novelty for us in the acid soils of Cornwall, and the verges were covered with dandelions, fully open in the sun..
Dandelions and Red Dead-nettle.
Another novelty for us is White Dead-nettle, abundant here but much less often seen in Cornwall.
Orange Tips with conspicuous wing-tips of the males, were flying up and down the hedges, search for mates.
Talking to a lady at Chedington, we explained what we were doing as we gazed across the landscape and she agreed that it was a moot point as to which was the true source of the river. But she assured us by the time it reached the village of South Perrott a little way to the NW it is a ‘real river’! In fact it was a four-foot wide, shallow stream, turbid and the stones on the river-bed trailed murky wisps of algal growth. It would be interesting to see how it showed on a pollution test!
The 'real' river at South Perrott. It is four or five foot wide, rather turbid with rather toxic-looking algae growing on the stones.
And so it continued as it flowed through the wide flat expanse of farmland with occasional ham-stone villages, the river slowly becoming a little bigger and now and then a clump of Sparganium (Bur Reed) growing in the water. . The banks were largely fringed by a line of scrubby willows and alders.
The long-distance footpath, the Parrett Way followed the river at times, or at least the line of the valley, but detoured in places, as did the lanes which only gave us access to the river at intervals. It is about 50 miles long and eventually joins the Somerset Coastal Path at Bridgwater Bay
We detoured into Crewkerne to buy food for a picnic lunch. The attractive little town was busy, possibly partly because this week is straddled by two bank holidays and the impending Coronation, and there might be more holiday-makers about.
The upper headwaters of the Parrett run through this ancient town which was first documented by King Alfred who left it in his will in 899 to his son. It was later a manor of William the Conqueror and became a wealthy textile town in later medieval times.
Local architecture at Little Hinton.
Stone Stile.
Passing through Little Hinton, another small ham-stone village we stopped by the river between marshy fields. The geology in the Parrett basin is heavy Fuller’s Earth clay overlying Yeovil Sand and this low, flat ill-drained land must be prone to winter flooding .
We looked across to the villages perched on the further hillside: Chiselborough with the prominent spire of the church of St Peter & St Paul, and beyond, the village of Norton sub Hamdon with the tower of St Mary’s church. For the first time in this trip, we saw big flocks of sheep and Tony found Otter spraint on the edge of the river.
Still following the convoluted lanes we came to the oddly-named place called Parrett Works. A large stone-built mill with a tall clock tower, dominated the hamlet. Just beside the road bridge were the tunnel exits of two leats rejoining the Parrett at that point. Further upstream, the leats must have left the river, to flow pass the mill, and over a waterwheel giving power to machinery.
The mill was originally a snuff mill and later an iron foundry.
( ABOVE....This is what Wikipedia has to say about the mill.)
The road took us through East Lambrook, the home of the famous garden made at East Lambrook Manor by Margery Fish and immortalised in her book about the development of the garden by her and her husband. We visited it a couple of years after she died and although local volunteers were manfully trying to look after it, they didn’t have the intimate knowledge of every plant and its idiosyncrasies that the Fishes had. However, many years on, the garden is still open to the public and hopefully still maintaining the spirit and character of its original conception. Unfortunately this time we were too late in the afternoon to visit.
East Lambrook Garden in its heyday.
Towards Langport the river is significantly bigger, now contained by levees to ameliorate flooding of adjacent land. The villages of Kington Episcopi and Huishe Episcopi are so-named because they were part of the extensive land holdings of Wells Cathedral.
Levees on river-sides.
A noted historical site and tourist attraction is Muchelney Abbey near Martock.
And nearby is the lane to Huish Slipway where there is an activity centre hiring canoes and paddleboards to people for navigating the river from the slipway here.
The picture shows where a big drainage channel, the Long Sutton Catchwater drain flows into the Parret.
Langport. Some of the buildings along the town's main street lean at an uneasy angle due to subsidence of the underlying peat.
We arrived at Langport at the end of an intensive day. It was the natural end to the first section of the river and we plan to resume our exploration of the next stage through the Somerset Levels later in the season.
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