River Foulness
The River Foulness, also known as the Shipton Beck, a stream in East Riding of Yorkshire. Ultimately the beck discharges into the Market Weighton Canal.
The name 'Foulness' is derived from Old English fule[n] ea, meaning “dirty water”.[1] The name 'Shipton' is reflected in the village of Shiptonthorpe.
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.[2] 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.[3] The river lies in an area known as the Humberhead Levels.
Contents
Course
The river rises in the fields north-west of Shiptonthorpe, which is just north-west of Market Weighton. It flows south through the village and then heads west south-west towards Holme-on-Spalding-Moor. Running about the town, the river then turns back in a south-easterly direction until it joins the Market Weighton Canal just north of the M62.
Natural history and geology
The area surrounding the river is almost totally agricultural. The majority of the area is farmland with large rectangular fields bounded by hedgerow, mainly hawthorn with blackthorn; dog rose; elder and hazel, with very few areas of woodland.[4] This area would have been marshland before the introduction of the drainage system and the Market Weighton Canal. Wildlife surveys of the river show evidence of water voles, otters, freshwater mussel and many amphibians.
The river flows over several soil types including Loam, Sand and Alluvium.[5] There are over 75 miles of drainage ditches that feed into the river, but few natural tributaries.
History
The river valley has been populated since Palaeolithic times with many artefacts from that age being unearthed by archeologists.[6] Remains from Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman times have also been found by various digs in the area.
Tributaries
Streams feeding the Shipton Beck include:
- East Beck (at Shiptonthorpe)
- Skelfrey Beck
- Black Dike
- Over 75 miles of drainage channels and small watercourses
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Villages
Location
- Location map: 53°52’24"N, 0°43’1"W
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about River Foulness) |
References
- ↑ "Foulness - Hull AWE". http://hull-awe.org.uk/index.php/Foulness.
- ↑ "The Ouse and Humber Drainage Board". http://www.ohdb.org.uk.
- ↑ "River Management". http://www.marketweighton-idb.org/adopted-watercourses.htm.
- ↑ "Area characteristics". http://www.eastriding.gov.uk/corp-docs/forwardplanning/docs/lca/final/type7.pdf.
- ↑ "Soil types". http://www.ironmasters.hull.ac.uk/map-page.cfm?lastpage=Home.
- ↑ "Artfacts". http://www.ironmasters.hull.ac.uk/map-page.cfm?lastpage=Home.
