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 (River Lark Act 1698). 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 navigation was officially abandoned in 1888, but despite this, commercial use of the river continued until 1928. Following an acquisition by the Great Ouse Catchment Board, locks at Barton Mills and Icklingham were rebuilt in the 1960s, but were isolated when the A11 road bridge was lowered soon afterward. It now has one operational lock at Isleham, and can be navigated to Jude's Ferry.
Water quality in the river was generally moderate in 2016, although there was a section where the quality was bad, the lowest rating given by the Environment Agency, who monitor English rivers. The river hosts a large population of signal crayfish, an invasive species which has increased as the eel population has diminished.
The upper river is an important focus for prehistoric activity, particularly relating to the Neolithic enclosure at Fornham All Saints. This comprises a large causewayed enclosure, several ring features, and a long cursus.[3]
Just above Barton Mills, a side weir connects the river to the start of the Cut-off Channel, a 28-mile (45km) drain running from there to Denver along the south-eastern edge of the Fens, which was constructed in the 1950s and 1960s. During times of flood it carries the headwaters of the River Lark, the River Wissey and the Little Ouse to Denver Sluice on the River Great Ouse.[4]
Below Barton Mills, the mill stream at Mildenhall marks the start of a footpath which follows the north bank of the river, passing Mildenhall Cricket Club, to Isleham, after which there are footpaths and drove roads on both sides of the river to its junction with the Great Ouse. There is a weir at King's Staunch, after which comes Jude's Ferry, the current head of navigation, where boats at least 60 feet (18m) in length can be turned. A magnificent hoard of late Roman silver was discovered at nearby Thistley Green in 1942, and the 34 pieces, which included bowls, spoons, dishes and goblets, were declared to be Treasure trove and are now in the British Museum.[5]
Barges on the River Lark, c. 1910
The stretch from Jude's Ferry to Isleham includes several pill-boxes, which were constructed during World War II to defend against invasion.[6] Above the start of the lock cut is a memorial to the famous Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon, who was baptised in the river on 3 May 1850. The site, where a chain ferry once crossed the river, and another near the weir were used for public baptisms until 1970. Isleham itself has three pubs, all dating from the 17th century, some shops and a large marina. There was an outbreak of cholera here in the 1850s, when over 500 people were "living in hollows" as a result of poverty which affected many fenland villages. In medieval times, Isleham was an important port with three quays. Remains of a Roman villa and over 6,000 Bronze-Age artefacts, which are now in the Moyse's Hall Museum at Bury St Edmunds, indicate that it has been a centre of occupation since antiquity.[7]
From Isleham to Prickwillow, the river flows for almost 4 miles (6.4km) in an artificial cut, thought to have been constructed by the Romans, and joined the River Great Ouse at Prickwillow until 1830. The Great Ouse was then diverted, and its old course occupied by the Lark.[8] There are a number of pumping stations on the banks of this section, including the Lark Engine, which has been the main outlet for the drainage of the southern part of Burnt Fen since 1842.[9] Many of the surrounding ditches once flowed into the river by gravity, but the draining of the fens has resulted in the land surface dropping, and the water must now be raised by up to 16 feet (4.9m) from the ditches to the river. At Mile End, two pumping stations sit one above the other, indicating the progressive sinking of the land. Prickwillow is home to the Museum of Fen Pumping Engines, itself once a working pumping station, and now holding several engines which were used in the draining of the Fens.[6]
Prickwillow vicarage also demonstrates the shrinking of the land. Its ground floor rooms were originally the cellars, and the two steps leading to the front door have been replaced by nine. Below Prickwillow, the river is crossed by the Ely to Norwich railway line. The final 0.9 miles (1.4km) of the river's course are quite straight, as the river flows through another artificial channel.[1] At its junction with the Great Ouse, the channel is crossed by a road which was formerly the A10, which ran along the banks of the Great Ouse at this point on its route from Ely to Littleport,[10] but this section has been bypassed by a new alignment of the road further to the west.[11]
Management
The river is managed and maintained by the Environment Agency, from whom boat owners must obtain a licence in order to use the waterway.[12] The Agency have designated the section from Sicklesmere through Bury St Edmunds and Fornham St Martin to Isleham as a Flood Warning Area.[13]
Navigation
The Lark is thought to have been used by the Romans for the carriage of clunch, a building material quarried from pits near Isleham, and stone for the building of Bury St Edmunds Abbey was carried to the site along the river. The first records of plans to improve the river for navigation date from 1635, when Henry Lambe sought to make it navigable from the Ouse to Bury St Edmunds. Although his plans were approved by a commission, there was local opposition, and it was December 1637 before he was granted a licence from the King to complete the work. The River Lark Act 1698 (11 Will. 3. c. 22) was passed after having been pending for several years.[14] By 1700, the upper reaches were again in disrepair, and Henry Ashley obtained powers to improve the river from Worlington to below Mildenhall Mill, and to make it navigable from there to East Gate bridge in Bury St Edmunds. In addition to a schedule of tolls for the carriage of commodities, special provision was made so that some coal could be carried without incurring tolls, to assist the poor of Bury St Edmunds, and "gentlemen and persons of quality" did not have to pay for the use of the river by pleasure boats.[15]
Ashley built 14 staunches and 11 sluices, the latter almost certainly referring to pound locks. In 1716, tolls amounted to £475, although the work was unfinished, and Ashley estimated that a further £800 was required to complete it. Disputes with millers were recorded in 1720 and 1722, and ownership of the navigation was disputed on Ashley's death. The Master of the Rolls gave it to Joshua and Joanna Palmer in 1742, but receipts were meagre, at around £267 per year, and the maintenance carried out was barely sufficient. Ownership had passed to their son, Ashley Palmer, by 1781, when the navigation made a profit of £274. In 1790, there were plans for a 31-mile (50km) link from Bury St Edmunds to the River Stour at Mistley, which John Rennie surveyed, but it involved heavy engineering work, including a 2,420-yard (2,210m) tunnel, and the estimated cost of £75,000 could not be raised. Palmer died in 1792, and the river was managed by Susanna Palmer, his widow.[16]
The costs of maintenance were high, for in 1807 tolls of £1,348 were received, but profits were less than one third of that amount. Recognising that a large investment was needed to keep the river profitable, an attempt was made in 1817 to sell it to the Duke of Norfolk for £12,000, but this came to nothing. The original commissioners appointed under the act obtained in 1700 had failed to appoint any more commissioners, and so new commissioners were authorised by a further act of Parliament, the River Lark Navigation Act 1817 (57 Geo. 3. c. lxxi), with powers to raise the tolls to pay for the maintenance of the navigation. Little work was done, although a new lock and staunch were built at Isleham under provisions of the Eau Brink Act 1821 (1 & 2 Geo. 4. c. lxiv). The South Level Commissioners, who had been formed by an act of Parliament[which?] obtained in 1827, took over control of the lower river, and re-routed it to join the new course of the Great Ouse which had been diverted into a cut to the west of its original route. Trade on the upper river was increasingly difficult, as a result of obstructions and shoals in the channel. The lighters used on the river often had to be partially unloaded at Prickwillow, to allow them to navigate the shallower sections.[17]
Control of the river above Isleham was inherited by Sir Thomas Cullum when Susanna Palmer died. He rebuilt most of the locks and staunches in the 1830s, resulting in increased trade in coal and general merchandise which originated from Kings Lynn, but success was short lived, as the Eastern Union Railway opened a line from Ipswich to Bury St Edmunds in 1846, and decline was immediate. In the 1850s, with the Fornham to Bury section impassible, the Bury St Edmunds Navigation Company proposed a scheme to reopen the river to Bury railway station. Their prospectus stated that the Eastern Union Railway had been managing the river for seven years, but little changed, as they failed to raise a working capital of £20,000, and by the 1860s, the route above Mildenhall was ruined.[18]
Abandonment of the river as a navigation was authorised by the Railway and Canal Traffic Act 1888. The River Arun in West Sussex was the only other river abandoned by this act. Despite this, the Eastern Counties Navigation and Transport Co Ltd bought the river from Lee Brook to Bury St Edmunds in 1890, made Tuddenham Mill Stream navigable, repaired locks and staunches on the main river, and re-opened it in September 1894. The company was bankrupt by December, and the Icklingham to Bury St Edmunds section closed again. Some trading continued on the lower reaches, but commercial carrying ceased after 1928. Ownership of the river passed to the Great Ouse Catchment Board with the passing of the Land Drainage Act 1930. They rebuilt Barton Mills and Icklingham locks in the 1960s, but the bridge carrying the A11 road at Barton Mills was lowered soon afterward, and the present head of navigation is at Jude's Ferry.[19]
Ecology
The Environment Agency assesses the water quality within 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.[20]
The water quality of the River Lark system was as follows in 2019.
Separate figures for the Lark downstream of Isleham are not available, and the final row covers the lower section of the Lark, parts of the River Great Ouse and a number of its other tributaries. The Hawstead to Abbey Gardens section deteriorated from poor quality in 2015 to bad in 2016. The Environment Agency have set a target for ensuring it is moderate by 2027. 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) and perfluorooctane sulphonate (PFOS), neither of which had previously been included in the assessment.[26]
The river hosts a large population of the invasive species, the signal crayfish. A study published in 2011 identified the decline in eels, which predate the crayfish, as the major factor in their dramatic increase.[27]
The River Waveney is a river which forms the boundary between Suffolk and Norfolk, England, for much of its length within The Broads. The earliest attestation of the name is from 1275, Wahenhe, from *wagen + ea, meaning the river by a quagmire.
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 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 River Wissey is a river in Norfolk, eastern England. It rises near Bradenham, and flows for nearly 31 miles (50 km) to join the River Great Ouse at Fordham. The lower 11.2 miles (18.0 km) are navigable. The upper reaches are notable for a number of buildings of historic interest, which are close to the banks. The river passes through the parkland of the Arts and Crafts Pickenham Hall, and further downstream, flows through the Army's Stanford Training Area (STANTA), which was created in 1942 by evacuating six villages. The water provided power for at least two mills, at Hilborough and Northwold. At Whittington, the river becomes navigable, and is surrounded by fenland. A number of pumping stations pump water from drainage ditches into the higher river channel.
The River Stour is a major river in East Anglia, England. It is 47 miles (76 km) long and forms most of the county boundary between Suffolk to the north, and Essex to the south. It rises in eastern Cambridgeshire, passes to the east of Haverhill, through Cavendish, Sudbury, Bures, Nayland, Stratford St Mary and Dedham. It becomes tidal just before Manningtree in Essex and joins the North Sea at Harwich.
The River Gipping is the source river for the River Orwell in the county of Suffolk in East Anglia, England, which is named from the village of Gipping, and which gave its name to the former Gipping Rural District. It rises near Mendlesham Green and flows in a south-westerly direction to reach Stowmarket. From there it flows towards the south or south east, passing through Needham Market then Baylham. The river continues to flow south between Great Blakenham and Claydon, and through Bramford and Sproughton until it flows into Ipswich, where it becomes the Orwell at Stoke Bridge. The river has supplied power to a number of watermills, several of which are still standing. None are operational, although the mill at Baylham retains most of its machinery, and is the only complete mill on the river.
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.
The River Nar is a river in England, a tributary of the River Great Ouse. It rises at Mileham near Litcham in Norfolk and flows 15 miles west through Castle Acre and Narborough, joining the Ouse at King's Lynn. It has had a variety of alternative names, such as the Setch, the Sandringham, and Lynn Flu, though these are rarely, if ever, used today. In 2011 the Nar was recognised by the Environment Agency as one of the top ten most improved rivers in England and Wales.
Prickwillow is a village in East Cambridgeshire with an estimated population of 440. Originally a small hamlet on the banks of the River Great Ouse, it is now on the banks of the River Lark since re-organisation of the river system. It lies in the south of the Fens, 4 miles (6.4 km) east of the city of Ely in Cambridgeshire, England, and is home to Prickwillow Museum, which tells the story of the changing face of Fenland. Prickwillow Museum is housed in the old pumping station and contains a major collection of working pumping engines. The village is also home to the Ely Group of Internal Drainage Boards.
The Market Weighton Canal ran 9.5 miles (15.3 km) from the Humber Estuary to its terminus near Market Weighton. It gained its act of Parliament in 1772 and opened in 1782. The 3.5 miles (5.6 km) closest to Market Weighton was abandoned in 1900 and the right of navigation through Weighton lock was lost in 1971. However, as of 2002 the lock was passable and the canal usable up to the junction with the River Foulness where silt has made it impassable. Also there is no right of navigation under the M62 motorway bridge to the north of Newport.
Burnt Fen is an area of low-lying land crossed by the A1101 road between Littleport in Cambridgeshire and Mildenhall in Suffolk, England. It is surrounded on three sides by rivers, and consists of prime agricultural land, with sparse settlement. It is dependent on pumped drainage to prevent it from flooding.
The Conservators of the River Cam are the navigation authority for the River Cam in Cambridgeshire and were founded in 1702.
The Fens Waterways Link is a project to improve recreational boating opportunities in the counties of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, England. By a combination of improvements to existing waterways and the construction of new links a circular route between Lincoln, Peterborough, Ely and Boston is planned. The project is being organised by the Environment Agency and financed from the Regional Development Agency and the European Union.
Icklingham is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. It is located about 7 miles (11 km) north-west of Bury St Edmunds, 4 miles (6.4 km) south-east of Mildenhall and 9 miles (14 km) south-west of Thetford in Norfolk. The village is on the A1101 road between Bury St Edmunds and Mildenhall in the north-west of the county. The area around the village, characterised by a sandy gravel-laden soil, is known as Breckland, though an arm of the fen-like peat follows the River Lark past the village.
The Cambridgeshire Lodes are a series of man-made waterways, believed to be Roman in origin, located in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. Bottisham, Swaffham Bulbeck, Reach, Burwell, Wicken and Monks Lodes all connect to the River Cam, while Soham and Cottenham Lodes connect to the River Great Ouse. All have been navigable historically, but some are no longer officially navigable.
The Cut-off Channel is a man-made waterway which runs along the eastern edge of the Fens in Norfolk and Suffolk, England. It was constructed in the 1950s and 1960s as part of flood defence measures, and carries the headwaters of the River Wissey, River Lark and River Little Ouse in times of flood, delivering them to Denver Sluice on the River Great Ouse. In the summer months, it is also used as part of a water supply scheme for drinking water in Essex.
West Suffolk District is a local government district in Suffolk, England. It was established in 2019 as a merger of the previous Forest Heath District with the Borough of St Edmundsbury. The council is based in Bury St Edmunds, the district's largest town. The district also contains the towns of Brandon, Clare, Haverhill, Mildenhall and Newmarket, along with numerous villages and surrounding rural areas. In 2021 it had a population of 180,820.
River Lark Act 1698 was an Act of Parliament to facilitate making the River Lark navigable from Bury St Edmunds to Mildenhall in Suffolk.
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