River Isle

This article is about the river in Somerset, England. For the river in France, see Isle (river).

River Isle
River Isle at Isle Brewers
Location
Country	England
County	Somerset
Region	Somerset Levels
Cities	Isle Brewers, Ilminster, Knowle St Giles, Chard, Somerset
Physical characteristics
Source
• location	Combe St Nicholas, Somerset, England
• coordinates	50°55′10″N2°56′23″W / 50.91944°N 2.93972°W / 50.91944; -2.93972
Mouth	River Parrett
• location	Somerset, England
• coordinates	51°00′32″N2°49′55″W / 51.00889°N 2.83194°W / 51.00889; -2.83194
Length	14 mi (23 km)

The River Isle (also known as the River Ile) flows from its source near Combe St Nicholas, through Somerset, England and discharges into the River Parrett south of Langport near Midelney.

Several small springs merge into the river near Wadeford it then flows north past Donyatt, Ilminster, Puckington, and Isle Abbotts, before joining the Parrett. The first section of the river falls 250 feet (76 m) in 6 miles (9.7 km) and then falls less steeply falling 80 feet (24 m) during the subsequent 8 miles (13 km). ^[1] As a result, several mills were built on the upper reaches of the river. At least one mill was in existence at the time of the Domesday Book in 1086. These mills were an important part of the local economy connecting with the wool trade. ^[2]

The road bridge over the river at Knowle St Giles is a Grade II listed building. ^[3]

A lock was built at the junction with the River Parrett, to maintain water levels, when the Westport Canal was built in the 1830s. The canal joins the river approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) before the confluence with the Parrett. ^[4]

Chard Reservoir was built by damming the river in the 1840s to provide water for the Chard Canal. ^[5]

Tributaries

Near Ilton and Puckington, the Isle is joined by Cad Brook. The name of this stream is first attested in a thirteenth-century copy of a perhaps tenth-century forgery of a charter purporting to date from 725, ^[6] as Caducburne. The name is attested again in the fifteenth century as Cadde. The second element of this name is an Old English word meaning "stream", the origin of the first element is less certain. In 1928, Eilert Ekwall guessed that Caduc was a diminutive form of a personal name Cada, thus meaning "Caduc's stream". ^[7] By 1936 he had concluded that the name included a rare Old English word for jackdaw, cadac, in which case the river name meant "jackdaw stream". ^[8] Andrew Breeze has more recently suggested that caduc was actually a Brittonic name for the stream, adopted into Old English with burn as an explanatory addition, related to the Modern Welsh word caddug ("mist, gloom, darkness"). ^[9]

The stream gave its name to the hamlet of Cad Green. ^[9] By the 1920s, the stream itself seems to have been called the Ding, ^[7] but recent maps show Cad Brook, suggesting that Cad Green has in turn given its name back to the stream from which it was named.^{[ citation needed ]}

References

1. "River Isle". Somerset Rivers. Retrieved 2 September 2011.
2. Warren, Derrick. "Mills of the Isle". Combe St Nicholas. Archived from the original on 31 March 2012. Retrieved 2 September 2011.
3. "Road Bridge over River Isle". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 2 September 2011.
4. "River Isle". Somerset Rivers. Retrieved 2 September 2011.
5. "Chard Reservoir leaflet" (PDF). south Somerset Council. Retrieved 18 November 2010.
6. "Electronic Sawyer". esawyer.lib.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 31 May 2023.
7. Eilert Ekwall (September 1968) [1928]. English River-Names. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 58. ISBN   978-0-19-869119-8.
8. Eilert Ekwall, Studies on English Place-names, Kungl. Vitterhets historie och antikvitets akademiens handlingar, 42:1 (Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand, 1936), p. 85.
9. Andrew Breeze, 'Cad Green, Ilton, Somerset', in Richard Coates, Andrew Breeze, and David Horovitz, Celtic Voices English Places: Studies of the Celtic Impact on Place-Names in England (Stamford: Tyas, 2000), pp. 83-84 [first publ. 'The Name of Cad Green, Ilton', Notes and Queries for Somerset and Dorset, 34 [351 of the continuous series] (2000), 355-56].