River Stour, Suffolk
The River Stour (/ˈstʊər, ˈstaʊər/, pronounced rhyming with either "tour" or "sour")[1] is a major river in East Anglia, England. It is 47 miles (76 km) long[2] 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.
River Stour
117 m (384 ft)
0 m (0 ft)
47 mi (76 km)
Chilton Stream, River Glem,
River Box, River Brett
Stour Brook, Bumpstead Brook,
Belchamp Brook, Cambridge Brook
The origins of its name are unclear, but several possibilities have been proposed by scholars. The entire non-tidal river above Manningtree is designated as the Dedham Vale National Landscape, formerly known as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It has been painted by a number of prominent artists, including John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough.
The river was improved for navigation following the passing of an Act of Parliament in 1705. Locks were built to enable lighters to reach the town of Sudbury. Most of the locks were associated with mills, and the original 13 flash locks and 13 pound locks were replaced by 15 pound locks in the 19th century. The river was reasonably profitable at the beginning of the 19th century, but the advent of the railways led to a steady decline from 1852 onwards. Attempts to abandon it were thwarted by legal difficulties, but in 1914 the River Stour Navigation Company declared itself bankrupt, and the river soon became moribund.
From 1928 onwards, the river became a major source of drinking water, with South East Essex Waterworks (now Essex and Suffolk Water) extracting water at Langham and then Stratford St Mary pumping stations. As the demand for water grew, the Ely-Ouse to Essex Transfer Scheme was implemented, with water from the River Great Ouse discharged into the upper reaches of the river, and extracted again by the pumping stations. A third extraction point was added near Brantham, so that volumes of water flowing through Flatford could be maintained at a higher level for the benefit of tourists. To prevent salt water entering the river valley, sluices and a barrage were built at Cattawade, preventing boats from entering the river from the estuary.
The River Stour Trust was set up in 1968 to campaign for greater use of the river for navigation. It has worked to refurbish four locks, and to run boat trips from Flatford and Sudbury. The river can be used by unpowered craft between Sudbury and Cattawade, but powered boats are normally only allowed between Sudbury and Henny Mill, although the Trust has permission to run an electric boat at Flatford. Canoes and kayaks have to be portaged around the former locks where these have been replaced by fixed weirs and sluices.
Etymology and usage[edit]
The name is of ambiguous and disputed origin.
On one theory, the name Stour derives from the Celtic sturr meaning "strong".[3] However, the river-name Stour, common in England, does not occur at all in Wales;[4] Crawford noted two tributaries of the Po River near Turin, spelled Stura. In Germany the Stoer is a tributary of the River Elbe. According to Brewer's Britain and Ireland the Stour is pronounced differently in different cases: the Kentish and East Anglian Stours rhyme with tour; the Oxfordshire Stour is sometimes rhymes with mower, sometimes with hour, and the Worcestershire Stour always rhymes with hour.[5] Locally, the River Stour dividing Essex from Suffolk does not have a uniform pronunciation, varying from stowr to stoor.[6]
As against that, stour is a Middle English word with two distinct meanings and derivations, still current enough to appear in most substantial dictionaries. As an adjective, with Germanic roots, it signifies "large, powerful" (in present-day Scandinavian languages stor means "big, great"). As a noun, from medieval French roots, it signifies "tumult, commotion; confusion" or an "armed battle or conflict". Wiktionary also adds "blowing or deposit of dust", the primary definition in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, which adds that this is a northern English and Scottish usage of uncertain derivation.[7] In 2006 it has been suggested that an Old European river-name was taken for an Old English adjective and that stour came to represent one pole of a structural opposition, with blyth at the opposite pole, allowing Anglo-Saxons to classify rivers on a continuum of fierceness.[8]
The Victorian etymologist Isaac Taylor proposed a very simple solution: that Stour derives from dŵr, the Welsh word for water.[9]
It is quite possible that the various Stours do not share a common origin and that they need to be considered in their own terms rather than as a single problem. Certainly there is currently no universally-accepted explanation.
Railway bridge over River Stour near Manningtree
Mouth of the River Stour at Harwich
Media related to River Stour, Suffolk at Wikimedia Commons