River Frome, Dorset

The River Frome (pronEng|fruːm) is a river in Dorset in the south of England. At 30 miles (48 km) long it is the major chalkstream in southwest England. It is navigable upstream from Poole Harbour as far as the town of Wareham.

Geography

The river rises in the Dorset Downs at Evershot, passes through Maiden Newton, Dorchester, West Stafford and Woodsford. At Wareham it and the River Piddle, also known as the River Trent, flow into Poole Harbour via the Wareham Channel. The catchment area is 181 square miles (454 km²) [http://www.riverfromeappeal.co.uk/images/fromerevisedlge.jpgmap] , approximately one sixth of the county.

East of Dorchester the river runs through unresistant sands, clays and gravels, which would have originally been capped by chalk which is still extant in the Dorset Downs to the north and Purbeck Hills to the south. The valley has wide flood plains and marshes and gave the name to the Durotriges, "water dwellers", the Celtic tribe of Dorset. The river forms a wide, shallow ria at its estuary, Poole Harbour.

Prior to the end of the last ice age the Purbeck Hills were continuous with the Isle of Wight and the Frome would have continued east through what is now Poole Harbour and Poole Bay, into The Solent, collecting the Stour, Beaulieu, Test and Itchen, before flowing into the Channel east of what is now the Isle of Wight.

History

The Romans built a 9 km aqueduct to supply their new town of Durnovaria (Dorchester); it started near the modern-day Littlewood Farm, Frampton, using a stream running from Compton Valence, and closely follows the contours of the chalk bluff to the southwest of the River Frome. Some traces of the aqueduct terrace can still be seen at Bradford Peverell and on the Dorchester by-pass. It has been calculated that water would have reached Dorchester at the rate of 13 million gallons per day.

The Danes made frequent raids up the river. The town walls at Wareham were built in 876AD, possibly by Alfred the Great, to defend the town against this threat.

Until the late 19th century, the river was an important part of the trade route for the export of Purbeck Ball Clay from the Isle of Purbeck. Originally the clay was brought to wharves at Wareham by pack horse from the clay pits to the south. In around 1830 the Furzebrook Railway was built, connecting the pits to a wharf at Ridge. This route was eventually superseded by the use of the main line rail network, and eventually by road.

The Frome has suffered a dramatic decline in the run of salmon in recent years. In 1988 over 4000 fish ran the river, by 2004 the run had fallen to 750 fish. This is partly due to obstacles at the Bindon Mill hatches and Louds Mill weir and partly to changed agricultural methodsFact|date=February 2007.

ee also

*Other River Fromes
*Rivers of the United Kingdom
*Geology of Dorset

External links

* [http://www.cotch.net/special:search.php?key=Dorset_Frome Photographs of the River Frome]
*Map and aerial photo sources for: mmukscaled|ST575045|25|the source near Evershot, source of the mmukscaled|ST520010|25|River Hooke, a tributary and mmukscaled|SY944875|25|the mouth in Poole Harbour.
* [http://www.grhe.co.uk Dorchester Fishing Club]