Glynde Reach | |
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![]() Glynde Reach near Glynde | |
Location | |
Country | England |
County | East Sussex |
Villages | Beddingham, Glynde, Ringmer, Laughton, Ripe, Selmeston |
Physical characteristics | |
Source | |
• location | Selmeston, East Sussex, UK |
• coordinates | 50°50′37″N0°08′25″E / 50.843594°N 0.140326°E |
Mouth | River Ouse |
• location | UK |
• coordinates | 50°50′52″N0°02′18″E / 50.847698°N 0.038201°E |
Length | 7.75 mi (12.47 km) |
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Glynde Reach is a river in East Sussex, England and tributary of the River Ouse. [1] The main channel is fed from sources near Laughton, Rushy Green on the outskirts of Ringmer, two streams near Selmeston and several near Ripe. [2]
Glynde Reach and the River Ouse were almost certainly a tidal inlet at the time the Domesday book was produced in 1086. The main industry was the production of salt by the evaporation of sea water, and salt works were recorded at Ripe and Laughton. [3] During the early 14th century, meadows were created on parts of the flood plain by building embankments, but conditions worsened later in the century. Meadows at Beddingham were flooded in the summer for five years in the 1360s and three in the 1380s, but not at all in the 1370s. The state of the land was affected by the state of the Ouse, and reductions in the volume of water to scour the main outlet at Newhaven as a result of the embanking resulted in a large shingle bar forming, and the mouth moving eastwards to Seaford. Consequently, conditions on the floodplain, known as the Lewes and Laughton Levels, worsened. Some 400 acres (160 ha) of meadow owned by the Archbishop of Canterbury near the junction of the Glynde Reach and the Ouse became a permanent fishery called the Brodewater in the 15th century. [4]
In 1537, after the Prior of Lewes and various riparian landowners had consulted with Dutch drainage engineers, the Commissioners of the Levels raised a water scot, levied on all whose land was threatened by flooding, and by 1539 had cut a new outlet channel for the River Ouse through the shingle bank at Newhaven. [5] The improved drainage benefitted the levels, enabling the Archbishop of Canterbury's Brodewater to revert to meadow, and it was still in use as such in 1616. Conditions worsened later in the 17th century, again connected with the deteriorating outlet to the Ouse, [6] and so the Commissioners for the Levels employed the engineer John Smeaton to carry out a survey and recommend solutions. He visited the area on four days in June 1767, after a period of wet weather, to inspect the meadow lands, locally known as brooks. He found that the brooks at Ranscombe, near the junction between Glynde Reach and the Ouse, in common with those to the west of the Ouse, had low and poorly maintained embankments, and at high tide, the water level in the river was above the levels of the meadows. [7] To the east of Ranscombe, the brooks bordering Glynde Reach were generally at a higher level, but were affected by stagnant water lying on the surface. He attributed this to the fact that there was no gradient on the river, which followed a winding course, and was confident that if the issues at Ranscombe could be resolved, those on the Glynde would also be. [8]
He proposed that the River Ouse should be straightened, that embankments should be raised at Ranscombe and to the west of the Ouse, and that a huge sluice should be constructed on the Ouse at Piddinghoe, to prevent tides from entering the river system. [9] By 1768, the Commissioners had implemented some of Smeaton's suggestions, widening the Ouse below Lewes and dredging it to remove the worst shoals, but they did little to straighten the river, and his great sluice was not constructed. [10]
The next great advance came not as a result of land drainage proposals, but from an attempt to make the Ouse navigable. William Jessop surveyed the Ouse with this in mind in 1768, and made two proposals. The Ouse would be made navigable above Lewes, almost to its source, by constructing locks and weirs. Below Lewes, he proposed radical reworking of the channel, to make it straighter, deeper and wider. [11] This second proposal was authorised by an Act of Parliament obtained in 1791, [10] and responsibility for the work was shared between a new body of Trustees for the river and the Commissioners of the Lewes and Laughton Levels. It would be funded by tolls for using the river, and by drainage rates for those who owned land on the levels. The balance between tolls and rates was too onerous for the landowners, and a second Act was obtained in 1800 to adjust them. [12] The project was managed by a Lewes schoolmaster and civil engineer called Cater Rand, who employed a team of several hundred navvies. Work on the Ouse was competed by 1795, and from 1796 to 1803 they tackled the Glynde Reach. The faster-moving water in the rivers and its scouring effect on the mouth of the Ouse meant that drainage was significantly improved. Ranscombe Brooks and the Laughton Levels could again be used for agriculture, although there were complaints from a group of chair-bottomers, who lost their source of reeds to make chair seats. [10]
From 1783 until his retirement in 1828, the Expenditor for the Lewes and Laughton Levels was John Ellman, better known for his agricultural achievements, particularly the improvement of the Southdown sheep breed. [13] He worked tirelessly to organise and supervise work carried out on the Glynde Reach and in the valley, where part of his farm was located on the levels. [14] Such improvements reduced the incidence of flooding, and improved the draining of the land if such an event occurred. [10] In 1973 a dam and pumping station was constructed across the channel at Beddingham, to prevent tidal water from entering the Laughton Level completely. [15]
The Environment Agency measure 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 invertebrates, angiosperms and fish. Chemical status, which compares the concentrations of various chemicals against known safe concentrations, is rated good or fail. [16]
The water quality of Glynde Reach was as follows in 2019.
Section | Ecological Status | Chemical Status | Length | Catchment |
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Glynde Reach [17] | Poor | Fail | 8.0 miles (12.9 km) | 21.82 square miles (56.5 km2) |
Reasons for the water quality being less than good include physical modification of the channel, discharge from sewage treatment works and runoff from agricultural land. Although still poor, the quality has improved since 2016, when it was rated bad. Like most rivers in the UK, the chemical status changed from good to fail in 2019, due to the presence of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE), perfluorooctane sulphonate (PFOS) and mercury compounds, none of which had previously been included in the assessment. [18]
The River Great Ouse is a river in England, the longest of several British rivers called "Ouse". From Syresham in Northamptonshire, the Great Ouse flows through Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk to drain into the Wash and the North Sea near Kings Lynn. Authorities disagree both on the river's source and its length with one quoting 160 mi (260 km) and another 143 mi (230 km). Mostly flowing north and east, it is the fifth longest river in the United Kingdom. The Great Ouse has been historically important for commercial navigation, and for draining the low-lying region through which it flows; its best-known tributary is the Cam, which runs through Cambridge. Its lower course passes through drained wetlands and fens and has been extensively modified, or channelised, to relieve flooding and provide a better route for barge traffic. The unmodified river would have changed course regularly after floods.
The River Lark crosses the border between Suffolk and Cambridgeshire in England. It is a tributary of the River Great Ouse, and was extended when that river was re-routed as part of drainage improvements. It is thought to have been used for navigation since Roman times, and improvements to its navigability were made in 1638 and in the early 18th century, when locks and staunches were built. Special powers to improve the river from Mildenhall to Bury St Edmunds were granted by statute. The upper terminus was on the northern edge of Bury St Edmunds, but a new dock was opened near the railway station after the Eastern Union Railway opened its line in 1846.
The River Little Ouse, also known as the Brandon River, is a river in the east of England, a tributary of the River Great Ouse. For much of its length it defines the boundary between Norfolk and Suffolk.
The Old Bedford River is an artificial, partial diversion of the waters of the River Great Ouse in the Fens of Cambridgeshire, England. It was named after the fourth Earl of Bedford who contracted with the local Commission of Sewers to drain the Great Level of the Fens beginning in 1630. It provided a steeper and shorter path for the waters of the Great Ouse, and was embanked to prevent them flooding the low ground of the South Fens. Throughout the project, the Earl and his Adventurers faced disruption from those who were opposed to drainage schemes. The project was deemed to have succeeded in draining the fens in 1637, but that decision was reversed in 1638. After a lull during the English Civil War, when much of the work was damaged, the Dutch engineer Cornelius Vermuyden worked with William Russell, the fifth Earl of Bedford to complete the drainage. Disruption and unrest continued while the work was carried out, resulting in the Adventurers employing armed guards. A second river, the New Bedford River, was cut parallel to the first channel, which then became the Old Bedford River. At some point, the Old Bedford River was split into two parts, when the upper section was diverted into the River Delph at Welches Dam, and the lower section was joined to the Counter Drain. Both parts retain the name, but are not connected to each other. The area between the two Bedford rivers acts as a large washland, which holds floodwater when the river channels cannot cope with the volume of water in them.
The New Bedford River, also known as the Hundred Foot Drain because of the distance between the tops of the two embankments on either side of the river, is a navigable man-made cut-off or by-pass channel of the River Great Ouse in the Fens of Cambridgeshire, England. It provides an almost straight channel between Earith and Denver Sluices. It is tidal, with reverse tidal flow being clearly visible at Welney, some 19 miles (31 km) from the sea.
The Ouse is a 35 miles long river in the English counties of West and East Sussex. It rises near Lower Beeding in West Sussex, and flows eastwards and then southwards to reach the sea at Newhaven. It skirts Haywards Heath and passes through Lewes. It forms the main spine of an extensive network of smaller streams, of which the River Uck is the main tributary. As it nears the coast it passes through the Lewes and Laughton Levels, an area of flat, low-lying land that borders the river and another tributary, the Glynde Reach. It was a large tidal inlet at the time of the Domesday book in 1086, but over the following centuries, some attempts were made to reclaim some of the valley floor for agriculture, by building embankments, but the drainage was hampered by the buildup of a large shingle bar which formed across the mouth of the river by longshore drift.
Newhaven is a port town in the Lewes district of East Sussex, England, lying at the mouth of the River Ouse.
Rodmell is a small village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. It is located three miles (4.8 km) south-east of Lewes, on the Lewes to Newhaven road and six and a half miles from the City of Brighton & Hove and is situated by the west banks of the River Ouse. The village is served by Southease railway station, opened in 1906. The Prime Meridian passes just to the west of the village.
Isfield is a small village and civil parish in the Wealden District of East Sussex in England, located north-east of Lewes.
Southease is a small village and civil parish in East Sussex, in South East England between the A26 road and the C7 road from Lewes to Newhaven. The village is to the west of the River Ouse, Sussex and has a church dedicated to Saint Peter. Southease railway station lies roughly a kilometre east over the river and may be reached via a swing bridge.
Piddinghoe is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. It is located in the valley of the River Ouse between Lewes and Newhaven, five miles (8 km) south of the former, downstream of Southease.
Glynde is a village and shares a civil parish with Beddingham in the Lewes District of East Sussex, United Kingdom. It is located two miles (5 km) east of Lewes.
Iford is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. The village is located two miles (3.2 km) south of Lewes. The parish lies on slopes of the South Downs in the valley of the River Ouse.
The River Tillingham flows through the English county of East Sussex. It meets the River Brede and the eastern River Rother near the town of Rye. A navigable sluice controlled the entrance to the river between 1786 and 1928, when it was replaced by a vertical lifting gate which was not navigable. The river provided water power to operate the bellows of an iron works at Beckley Furnace, used to make cannons for the Royal Navy between 1578 and 1770, when it became uneconomic, and a water mill which replaced it, until that burnt down in 1909. The lower reaches supported a thriving shipbuilding industry from the early nineteenth century onwards, and although on a smaller scale, was still doing so in 2000.
John Ellman was an English farmer and stock breeder who developed the Southdown breed of sheep.
Barcombe Mills is a small settlement and an area of countryside including a local nature reserve near the village of Barcombe Cross in East Sussex, England. It is located in the civil parish of Barcombe in the Lewes District. It is an important area for its wildlife, natural environment and water storage. The River Ouse and Andrew's Stream, one of its tributaries and popular for fishing, flow through the area and Barcombe Reservoir is adjacent. The area includes a small hamlet and some farms, including Barcombe House, and a water treatment works.
Beddingham is an English village and civil parish in the Lewes district of East Sussex, at the junction between the London–Newhaven (A26) and south coast (A27) roads south-east of Lewes. The parish council joined with that of Glynde shortly after the Second World War, as Glynde and Beddingham, but they remain separate civil parishes.
The River Foulness is a river in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Its name is derived from Old English fūle[n] ēa, meaning “dirty water”. Maintenance responsibilities for the river transferred from the Environment Agency to the Market Weighton Drainage Board on 1 October 2011. Market Weighton Drainage Board subsequently amalgamated with the Lower Ouse Internal Drainage Board on 1 April 2012 to create the Ouse and Humber Drainage Board. The river discharges into the Humber Estuary via Market Weighton Canal. Water levels within the river, its tributaries and the canal are managed and controlled by the Environment Agency. The river lies in an area known as the Humberhead Levels.
The Lewes and Laughton Levels are an area of low-lying land bordering the River Ouse near Lewes and the Glynde Reach near Laughton in East Sussex, England. The area was probably a tidal inlet in Norman times, but by the early 14th century, some meadows had been created by building embankments. Conditions deteriorated later that century, and by 1537, most of the meadows were permanently flooded. Part of the problem was the buildup of shingle across the mouth of the Ouse, but in 1537 a scot tax was raised, and a new channel cut through the shingle. By the mid 17th century, shingle was again preventing the region from draining properly, until the new channel was reinstated around 1731. In 1758 John Smeaton surveyed the area with a view to improving it for agriculture. He suggested straightening and widening the river channel, raising the banks around meadows, and building a large sluice near Piddinghoe, to keep the tides out. Some dredging and widening were carried out, but the straightending and sluice were discarded.
The Lewes, Glynde and Beddingham Brass Band, or LGB Brass, is a brass band from Sussex. It was formed in the village of Glynde, but is now based in nearby Lewes, the county town of East Sussex.
Media related to Glynde Reach at Wikimedia Commons