Highs and Lows on Hampshire Chalk Streams

The Meon, Itchen and Test, 2010 onwards

Highs and Lows - River Lavant

My photos of changing water levels along the River Lavant from 2010 onwards

High Life and Low Life Compared - Watery Pics 2009 - 2017

Work in progress...

Further to my recent ramblings along low or absentee rivers in southern England, there now follows a series of entries comparing some of my recent photos of the Lavant, Meon and Salisbury Rivers with those I took during the more abundant years, including the floody winters of 2012/13 and 2013/14. They go to show the variability of the British weather which has seemed particularly pronounced during recent years, even if the highs and lows on the shorter timescales have reflected blocked weather patterns lasting weeks or month on end. The weather flows can be divided up into phases as follows

Winter 2009/10 - Summer 2010 - Fairly typical

Winter 2010/11 - March 2012 - The Low Life

The Abundant Times / The High Life  - April 2012 - Winter 2015/16

Ongoing new lows - Autumn 2016 onwards

Earlier High and Low Life (with Reference to Frosted Earth's Weather Books for Surrey, Hampshire and Sussex published during the 1990s)

The Long Low 1988 - 92

The River That Roared (River Lavant in Flood, January 1994)

The above were followed by the Millennial Sog - 1998 - 2001 - predominantly wet, especially over the winters, most notoriously so autumn - early winter 2000.

The Early C21 Dry 2002 - 2006

Summery Low Notes

Further to my rambles in valleys of absentee rivers, here are some of my watery notes from the first half of July, from Hampshire and around.

The Rising Tide of Plastic - Warsash Shore, 1st July

This is a sketch I did on Warsash Quay: media - marker pen, gouache and Neocolor pastels, the latter softening and breaking up as the sun came through and the weather warmed during the early afternoon. A change of support medium: pages of the All at Sea yachting newspaper picked up as left the nearby Rising Sun after a coffee. This sketch looking down the Hamble from the Quay, towards Southampton Water, pontoon in the foreground. Behind the sketch, an a piece about a young yachtswoman doing her bit to Turn the Rising Tide of Plastic. Having seen a report in The Guardian a few days before, that the "unstoppable rising tide of plastic waste in theoceans could be as big a threat to humankind as climate change", I let the part of this headline show through the gouache wash / pastel. 

Which brings me on to Summer Rant Number One:

Everytime I walk along our local coast, I'm acutely aware of this messy plastic tide. In my experience, the shores of Southampton Water are the most littered in Britain. It's mainly, though not exclusively plastic (also scrap metal, fabiric). The plastic is not just the plastic drink bottles, the focus of the above report, but plastic bottles and plastic stuff of all sorts - tangled fishing tackle, pieces of plastic bags and boxes. Of course, the plastic gets broken up into smaller and smaller pieces by wave action - making more likely to ingested by birds and marine wildlife. Potential for entanglement in all of the tackle, too. The rubbish washes in with every double high tide, and is left high and dry on the strandline when the tide ebbs. I can only think that much of it is carelessly thrown off boats of various sizes. 

For the past couple of years, the concrete WW2 structure at the mouth of the Hamble has displayed, in prominent grafitti lettering, Take Your Rubbish Home. Blatantly ignored, seafarers and landlubbers alike. By the latter, I mean picnic and barbecue-goers attracted outdoors in the sunny weather and warm summer evenings . A discarded shopping trolley containing empty beer / lager bottles and cans; and two or three overflowing bags of rubbish. On the landward side of the wall, out of the wind, yes, but clearly left there with the assumption that someone else (a park ranger / the council / local volunteers) would clear up their mess. Though the above news report emphasised broader measures, including well known drink manufacturers needing to take more responsibility and increased recycling, the bottom line should be Take Your Litter Home. This is something I was brought up to do and should be a given, without a second thought. 

Low Life along the Avon in Salisbury, 2nd July - Summer Rant Number Two. 

Crane Bridge

Fsherton Bridge, looking downstream

The following day, Sunday, I went to Salisbury. As I'd expected, the Avon and Nadder were running low. In some places, the water looked was very shallow and and devoid of vegetation. With nowhere to hide, the fish were visible, particularly near the footbridge over the Nadder between Queen Elizabeth Gardens and the path to Harnham. I think the water levels were lowest I've seen them here this summer, though everything did get low during the last drought, autumn 2011 / early 2012. As with the Lavant, I will compare photographs. What bothered me even more - flowing from from the day before - was yet more plastic and litter, including plastic bottles caught in a large clump of waterweed on the far side of the Avon near where the Nadder joined in QE Gardens - Normally, as the Avon is a relatively fast river, such detritus is wisked away, to the Solent if not picked up and binned, to join the trash in the oceans. Being clear running, litter below the surface of these sort of rivers (chalk streams) is more noticeable than in deeper / more turbid rivers. Though I wish there were more public rights of way along England's rivers (chalk streams particularly lacking here), litter hardly helps this case. 

At Harnham Mill, I took my usual reference photo for water levels on the southside of the mill, on the layby where anglers sometimes park. Lots of children paddling in the water, the green along the river busy with  people picnic-ing and sunbathing. 

As usual, though, I headed straight for the shade.As the general vibe - low water levels, Cathedral view across the river at the end of the green blocked by trees / plants - hard lighting in the midday midsummer sunshine - wasn't conducive to sketching views, I did some doodling in the pocket sketchbook I'd taken into a city centre cafe earlier in the day, and a page in the Sunday supplement I had on me.  My doodles (see above and below) protested at my rubbish weekend; and, if for anyone who doesn't like to be told that we're now in a new geological period, the  Anthropocene, how about the Garb-Age?

Upper Meon Running Dry, 9th July

West Meon

Amid more hot weather and strong burning sunshine in the first week of July, another hot few days, it was a relief to walk along the generally shaded route of the former Meon valley railway from West Meon and onto Old Winchester Hill, where the breeze took the edge off the sunshine. Dropped off around 8.30am on the West-East Meon road at the beginning of my walk by my Cycling Man, I crossed the upper River Meon as I joined the footpath. Leaving East Meon, the Meon flows through the grounds of Westbury House, where there is a millpond, then alongside the road to West Meon, before turning south. I'd seen it low here before during the summer. 

West Meon

It was now either dry, or down to a trickle. If things (drier weather / dry winters / rising water demand) go on as they are, I fear the Meon, at least its upper reaches could become a winterbourne just like the Lavant. On the back on the east side side of Old Winchester Hill, walking to East Meon, I crossed the fishing ponds at Meon springs. 

West Meon

Superficially they looked healthy - saw some fished as I passed by and it looked as if they'd cleared the green algal scum near the north side of the lane. The ground underfoot everywhere was baked dry, the chalk like hard rock. Compare and contrast with some winters when it has been very muddy at the foot of the hill on the east side (chalky mud churned up by cattle) . Near the seaward end of the Meon, the Titchfield Canal (effectively the westerly channel of the Meon between Titchfield and Titchfield Haven) was low back in May (7th). Invariably,  this is a notoriously muddy / waterlogged path - invariably impassable in anything other heavy duty wellies. I've written off walking along it in winter now. After the warm dry April, though, absolutely no such problem, the soil again bone dry. More the problem was biting insects, or at least my itchy sensitive skin perceiving them. 

West Meon