Dark Water, Hampshire

Dark Water river and marsh in Lepe Country Park

The Dark Water is a river five and a half miles long in south-west Hampshire. It flows from a source by the north-east edge of the New Forest, then south through the Forest to reach the sea through the end of the Beaulieu River estuary, next to the Solent, at Lepe.

The river's drainage basin reduces towards its mouth. It drains (with its main tributary, the Stock Water) most of the largely heathland forest's Beaulieu Heath. It then drains smaller Blackwell Common (the south of which was called Blackfield Common after neighbouring Blackfield). Then it drains the similar combined area: Horsemoor Copse, West Common (a meadow) and Chale Wood, below which narrow woods line one or both of the banks, beyond an inner marshy zone.

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