The famous chalkstream that might never have been

 

Greetings,   As you well know I have been trying to nail down a date for the creation of Nether Wallop Mill; currently somewhere around the mid 9th century looks favourite. However, in the course of my research I came across the Ad Quod Damnum Inquest of 1276, essentially a public inquiry into a proposal which would have seen the River Itchen transformed from a natural river that carried a limited amount of cargo, into a sea canal for shipping from Southampton, the third busiest port in England at that time, to Winchester, destroying the mills and salmon fishing along the route.   Firstly, I suppose it is some comfort, in these troubling times for rivers everywhere to know that existential threats are nothing new. In this particular case the threat came from the civic authorities in Winchester who petitioned the King Edward I to widen, deepen and straighten the River Itchen. Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for us, they came up against the combined powers of the Church who had significant milling interests and salmon fishing rights on the River Itchen, along with landowners along the route.

 

Woodmill Pool c. 1850   It is hard to imagine today, such is the parlous state of the salmon run, that the Itchen could have been a significant salmon fishery but it indeed was. In Saxon times, before the invasion by William the Conqueror a sea weir was built at the tidal mark of the Itchen, at the place we now call Woodmill Pool, for the commercial trapping of salmon. Five centuries later the run was far from depleted, a document of 1538 telling us local people were neglecting their work to steal salmon. For salmon were valuable: the business accounts of the Bishop on Winchester of 1301/2 state 53 salmon were sold for seven pounds and four shilling. To put that in context the annual labourer wage of the time was two pounds and Itchen salmon were clearly of some consequence, two were presented to Queen Margaret when she visited Winchester in 1302.   The Inquest was in no doubt as to the fate of Itchen salmon should permission for the sea canal be granted, stating “a certain fishery in which salmon are taken … would have to be destroyed.” Aside from the economic interest of the salmon fishing it was the fate of five valuable water mills owned by the church that also exercised the Bishop of Winchester the Inquiry stating these would have to be ‘pulled down”. So it was that the salmon and milling interests won the day, the Inquiry concluding the potential damage caused by the creation of the sea canal greater than any potential good thus putting an end to the hopes of the Winchester merchants.   Of course, the threats to the Itchen never went entirely away with the river regularly messed about in subsequent centuries to aid water transport and milling culminating in the creation of the Itchen Navigation Canal in the 18th century. However, it seems to me the canal builders, who required an Act of Parliament for construction to begin, must have taken some lessons from the Ad Quod Damnum Inquest as they bypassed Woodmill Pool and left the mill sections alone. In fact, looking at the map, there appear to be only a few short sections where the river entirely became canal it otherwise taking a separate route away or beside the original river from which, of course, it drew water.

 

 

The Navigation proved to be fairly short lived even though it undercut the cost of road transport by 90%. Completed in 1710 it was largely used for moving coal and timber, but the building of the Southampton-Winchester railway which followed an almost identical route saw the navigation cease operation in 1869 for good. Since then the navigation has just simply existed, with no real plan as to what should become of it and it being no real detriment to the river proper. Parts today are very visibly canal-like with a towpath and remnants of the seventeen locks along the route. Other sections have reverted entirely to their original river state; it is my suspicion that threads of the river were requisitioned to become the canal.   It is somewhat ironical that through nearly a millennium of regular physical upheaval the River Itchen, when it was exploited most for milling and transportation, the salmon kept on coming. However, in the more recent decades, when the river has fallen into what we might regard as a beneficial physical stasis, the run has collapsed which suggests to me that it is not so much the river itself that is important to the salmon but rather the water that runs through that river.

 

Stoke Lock. Note salmon and eel ladder on right.

 

 

Salmon trigger warning   Have you been watching Billionaire Island, the tale of warring Norwegian salmon farming entrepreneurs on Netflix?   If you are, you are clearly a brave soul as the trigger warning at the start of each episode tells us, unsurprisingly for a show about salmon farming, that it contains (aside from the sex and language) ‘sight of dead animals, injury detail’. Of put another way, fish being processed for the table.   The Guardian described the series as, “like Succession … with salmon farmers” giving it 4 out of 5 stars though others have been less generous with the ratings in the 6-7/10 range.  I am currently on episode three, so halfway through. It is passably good TV and, to its credit, does enough to illustrate the awfulness of salmon farming though to be fair, the characters in the show are more awful still.

 

Watch the trailer ...

 

 

Two new beats to try this autumn   I am delighted to bring you two new beats to try on the River Test this fall with a limited number of dates on each.   Lower Brook – River Test   Located on that section we call middle Test, that is to say between Stockbridge and Romsey, this open beat of with 2/3rds mile of double bank fishing is downstream of Compton Manor and upstream of Mottisfont Abbey. October 1,2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9,10, 12, 13, 14 & 15. £235/Rod, 2-4 Rods.  Book here …. or email for more details.

 

 

Private Beat – River Test  I just have a few days each year on this private beat that runs to over 1.5 miles of main river and carrier, with both wading and bank fishing sections. There is an amazing lodge and helpful river keeper. This is downstream of Whitchurch and upstream of Longparish. £395/Rod. 2-3 Rods. September 30 only.   Book here …. or email for more details.

 

 

Autumn 3-for-2 fly pack clearance   Fill your box with three of my fly pack selection for the price of two:   SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER               Six autumn dries CHALKSTREAM NYMPHS             Nine nymphs for all seasons GRAYLING                                      Dry & nymph grayling specialties   All three packs just £33.90 including free post and packing, a saving of £19.70. Order here ….

 

 

Gone Fishing!   Please do not feel ignored if you call or email us today (Friday) with no reply as we are closed for our guides, keepers and office annual party.   This year we are having a Fish Off at Avon Springs with a complicated team competition where you win points (and prizes!) for fish caught with special Simple and Grand Slams for bonuses with a Two Fly limit.   News on how we did next time.

 

 

Quiz   The normal random collection of questions inspired by the date, events or topics in the Newsletter. It is just for fun with answers at the bottom of the page.   1)     Who set sail on this day in 1066 to invade England?   2)     Which 60 year old King of England took 20 year old Queen Margaret as his wife in 1299?   3)     Which country in the world produces the most farmed salmon?

 

Have a good weekend.  Best wishes,

 

 

Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk Founder & Managing Directorwww.fishingbreaks.co.uk

 

 

Quiz answers:   1)     William the Conqueror 2)     Edward I 3)     Norway 55%. Chile 26%, UK 7%. Canada 5%. Faroe Islands 4%. Australia 2%.

The horrible stink of s**t and institutional indifference

 

Life on a Chalkstream 13th September 2024     Having problems reading this email? View as Webpage   ·     The horrible stink of s**t and institutional indifference The other water company scandal ·     Mortimer & Whitehouse at Ilsington ·     Half Term Kids Camps ·     That was the month that was August ·     Quiz   Greetings!   In response to my piece last time Jeremy Clarkson should ban pesticides not Keir Starmer I was asked by a reader why I keep slagging off farmers. Firstly, I am sorry to any farmers if my writing comes across that way: it is never my intention to slag anyone off (OK maybe the EA and Ofwat …..) but if there is a truth to be told it should be told, however hard that might be and believe me, that is hard for me.   For many years I defended farming, farmers and the industry of agriculture seeing the criticism of a very British way of life emanating from green zealots who had agendas beyond preserving the countryside. You see, I come from a farming background; my paternal grandfather made his living raising cattle and my father was an alumni of Sparsholt Agricultural College. Farming was never a career to which I aspired but I was bought up on a small farm, my childhood friends were largely children of farmers and my memories from back then most definitely err to the bucolic rather than the metropolitan. Wellingtons were then, as they are now, my preferred choice of footwear.     I am not sure for anyone alive today there has ever been a golden age of farming that was kind to the countryside - that probably died, as did the millions who tilled the land, with the First World War. The mechanisation and industrialisation of crop and animal production has been relentless in the past hundred years as the population has surged with people increasingly separated from the land both emotionally and physically. In many cases that is true of farmers themselves who have been encouraged, cajoled and incentivised down the agri-business route where pesticides, fertilizers and animal husbandry methods are deployed in ways unimaginable a generation or two ago.   Now, that is not all bad from the perspective of the consumer with supermarkets that offer an unsurpassed choice of reliable, cheap and, if you choose the correct items, nutritious food. But all that comes at a cost and that cost is to the fabric of the countryside. If you spray millions of gallons of pesticides it will kill trillions of insects. If you layer the land with fertilizer the nitrogen rich runoff has only one ultimate destination. Industrial scale chicken rearing factories grouped along the banks of a single river – well, you know how that one goes. And that is before we have even started to talk about salmon cages …….. which brings me to a horrible stink that currently pervades the British countryside that combines both the worst of the water industry, the agriculture industry and regulatory oversight. I am talking about sewage sludge.   Believe me, there are times in The Wallops when the entire area stinks of s**t. I am not talking about a mild, passing smell but the rankest, fetid odour that lingers for days. Somewhere close by a well-organised convoy of lorries will have bought in part dried, black sludge the by-product of sewage plants that will be piled in a field ready for spreading. By the way I am not talking about a couple of lorry loads; imagine something the width and height of a bungalow but often hundreds of yards long. To be fair, when it arrives, it doesn’t smell that much but once spread and rained upon the odour is unbelievable.     I think most of us accept this as part of country life having been reassured over the years that the sludge, despite the olfactory assault suggesting otherwise, is benign and a useful way of distributing an unwanted part of human life to benefit the soil and farmer income, calculated at £60 million from this source last year. However, I have always had a bit of a mental question mark – is the sludge really harmless? It turns out, thanks to an investigation by the New York Times into the same practice across American farms that ‘there is a growing awareness that sludge fertilizer can contain heavy concentrations of “forever chemicals” linked to cancer, birth defects and other health risks.’   As a result the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who have not tested for ‘forever chemicals’ in the sludge in the past are now doing so “to better understand the scope of farms that may have applied contaminated biosolids [posh name for the sludge] and develop targeted interventions to support farmers and protect the food supply”. The state of Maine has gone one step further entirely banning the use of sewage sludge on agricultural fields.  Now, you might be tempted to think that the US problem is huge compared to ours and that was my assumption until I dug a bit – however bad it is there, it is worse here. The ever helpful Water UK web site, the lobby group for the industry proudly tells us that annually 3.6 million tonnes of biosolids aka sludge are ‘recycled’ to agricultural land each year. That compares with just 2 million tonnes in the US which has 20 times more farmland. You do not need to have Einstein level maths to see that on our tiny, densely populated island how deleterious this intensive application of the sludge must be for our rivers.   You might well ask at this point who regulates the sludge industry and you will discover it is the innocuous sounding Biosolids Assurance Scheme who issue Certificates of Conformity to the water companies. But ultimately the puppet master in all this is our old friend the Environment Agency who have been aware of the forever chemical issue since 2017 as a result of a report they themselves commissioned, did nothing about it and then came under fire earlier this year when taken to court for failing to test sewage sludge for microplastics. Does all this sound horribly familiar? A regulator who does not regulate. Institutionalised pollution that has the official stamp of approval - think over pumping. The destruction of our countryside is happening in plain sight.   In Texas ranchers are suing the EPA for failing to regulate the forever chemicals in sewage sludge which was applied to neighbouring fields contaminating their land and contributing to the deaths of horses, cattle and catfish on their property. I do not wish any such a calamity on anyone but it will probably take a similar existential event to eventually spur government to ban sewage sludge and force the water companies to solve their s**t problem at their expense rather than the expense of the countryside.     Mortimer & Whitehouse at Ilsington   Back in June that juggernaut of a fishing series Mortimer and Whitehouse Gone Fishing rolled into Dorset and onto the River Frome at Ilsington in search of monster grayling.   It will be the final episode of the new series which begins on Sunday 22nd September at 9pm on BBC2 with the grayling hunt aired Sunday 10th November.     John Bailey (series fishing consultant), Paul & Bob     Half Term Kids Camps   You can tell I no longer have school age children having mistakenly allocated dates for the autumn term Half Terms Kids Camp the week before half term.   The One Day Camp is both a fun introduction and a refresher to fly fishing here at Nether Wallop Mill. Coming as it does, in the last few days of the season the lake will be stacked with fish with a chance for a brown, rainbow, spartic, blue and tiger slam. It has been done!   The dates we have are Monday October 21/28 for 8-11 years and Tuesday October 22/29 for 12-15 years. Discounts for siblings and combined bookings. More details here .....       That was the month that was August   I think the only thing missing from the August weather was a plague of locusts – searing heat, biblical rain and ripping winds all, at various times, put paid to the very best laid fishing plans.   However, despite all the above two things stand out from the month. Firstly, banks we were still slopping along in July dried to become passable with the proverbial carpet slippers. Secondly, the rivers still remain in prime condition with levels, clean gravel and weed more associated with June. The fish have not always got the message as to how privileged they are to be living through such extraordinary times varying from tight lipped and inert one week, to grab any fly gluttons the following week.   September looks set fair as a great month: in my foray out on Sunday I abandoned subtle, micro patterns in favour of a giant Goddard sedge and a Daddy Long Legs that would frighten the life out of an arachnophobe which the fish went for with slashing takes more reminiscent of Mayfly time. I am pleased to say that Roger Holdsworth will be able to try the same flies if he has a mind as the winner of the August feedback draw having fished at Qing Ya Xi.       Quiz   The normal random collection of questions inspired by the date, events or topics in the Newsletter. It is just for fun with answers at the bottom of the page.   1)     Who began building his wall on this day in AD 122?   2)     Who was Paul Whitehouse’s writing partner in the comedy sketch show The Fast Show?   3)     If you had anosmia what condition would you be suffering from?     Have a good weekend.  Best wishes,     Simon Cooper simon@fishingbreaks.co.uk Founder & Managing Directorwww.fishingbreaks.co.uk     Quiz answers:   1)     Roman Emperor Hadrianus 2)     Charlie Higson 3)     The partial or full loss of smell       TIME IS PRECIOUS. USE IT FISHING     The Mill, Heathman Street, Nether Wallop, Stockbridge, England SO20 8EW United Kingdom 01264 781988 www.fishingbreaks.co.uk Check out our social media