The River Churn is a tributary of the River Thames in central England. It rises at Seven Springs in Gloucestershire and flows south for approximately to meet the Thames at Cricklade in Wiltshire. Its length from its source to the confluence with the Thames is greater than that of the Thames from Thames Head, but the Churn is regarded as a tributary, rather than the main river.
Description
The River Churn is the first tributary river of the
River Thames. It rises in the
Cotswolds at Seven Springs, south of
Cheltenham,
Gloucestershire, England and flows south across the Cotswold
dip slope, passing through
North Cerney and
Cirencester, and joining the Thames in the parish of
Cricklade in
Wiltshire. Its length from source to confluence with the Thames is considerably greater than that of the Thames from
Thames Head, and its flow is also more consistent than the winterbourne Thames, but the Churn is regarded as a
tributary historically and therefore by most geography guides.
The length of the Churn is approximately .
The main tributaries are the Elkstone Brook, which joins at Perrots Brook Farm, and the Daglingworth Stream, also known as the Dunt Stream or Duntisbourne, which joins at Barton Mill, Cirencester. Two smaller tributaries are the Hilcot Brook and the Gumstool Brook.
Etymology
The name
Churn is ancient, certainly pre-
Roman Britain and probably from a
Celtic languages, possibly that spoken by the
Dobunni tribe, which controlled the area before the Roman conquest in the 1st century AD. The original name may have sounded similar to
Korinn, but its meaning is unknown.
[ The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names Based on the Collections of the English Place-Name Society, ed. by Victor Watts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), s.v. CORINIUM; .] It has also been suggested that the origin of the word is associated with the ancient British
Cornovii tribe.
Cognate names and name elements from the area are
Cerney,
Ciren and
Corin as found in the settlement names of
North Cerney,
Cirencester,
South Cerney, and Cerney Wick (all on or close to the river).
[ The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names Based on the Collections of the English Place-Name Society, ed. by Victor Watts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), s.vv. North CERNEY, South CERNEY, CERNEY WICK; .] Cirencester's name, first recorded as
Corinium Dobunnorum, is in original identical with the name of the river.
[ The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names Based on the Collections of the English Place-Name Society, ed. by Victor Watts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), s.vv. CIRENCESTER, CORINIUM; .]
History
Much of the catchment basin of the Churn was a key Roman settlement in the 2nd to 4th centuries AD, as Corinium Dobunnorum rose to likely status of capital of a division of Britain.
[Wacher, John (1995). The Towns of Roman Britain. London: B T Batsford.]
The Churn and the Thames feed the waters of a western bisection of the Cotswold Water Park, converted since the 1970s from redundant gravel beds between Cirencester and Cricklade.
In 2006, the national government was engaged in a planning study to analyse methods of mitigating future flooding associated with the Churn.
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
,
and fish. Chemical status, which compares the concentrations of various chemicals against known safe concentrations, is rated good or fail.
[ Text was copied from this source, which is available under an Open Government Licence v3.0. © Crown copyright.]
Water quality of the River Churn in 2019:
See also
-
Churn Valley
-
Tributaries of the River Thames
-
List of rivers of England
External links
