Hitchin Streams – its priceless assets

by Richard Walker

One of the least obvious but nonetheless great changes that have occurred in Hitchin area in the last half-century is in the rivers and streams that flow near to and through the town.

There are three; the Hiz, the Oughton and the Purwell Brook. The Hiz flows through the town, the Purwell Brook through Walsworth, and the Oughton runs past the northern outskirts, through Ickleford. All three eventually join the Ivel, which is also fed by two other tributaries, the Flit and the Hit; the Ivel joins the Great Ouse at Tempsford.

Fifty years ago, all these streams had generous flows of clear water rising from the chalk aquifers. They supported a considerable variety of wildlife, but to anglers their main feature was the excellence of their trout, which bred freely in them and reached considerable size. In some cases they were very obvious; for example, there was a pond at the entrance to the Priory, connected to the Hiz via a culvert and grating, and it was no uncommon sight to see two or three large trout swimming around in the pond.

The Public could also see trout, now and then, from the bridges in Bridge Street and at the Woolpack in Nightingale Road, as well as round Walsworth Common and at Grove Mill. These fish were very numerous in the Oughton, from the springs at Oughton Head all the way down the Common and along Burford’s Ray, down to Ickleford and below.

Then the Water Supply interests began sinking their boreholes at or near the sources of these streams, from which they took more and more water as the demand for it increased. One of the laws of hydraulics is that the rate at which silt, or mud, is deposited varies inversely with the flow rate. To put it another way, if you halve the flow rate, the silt deposits accumulate twice as fast. Water plants grown more profusely in silt and mud and that reduces the flow rate still further, adding yet more mud.

What it all boils down to is this; Hitchin and its surrounding villages have sold what, to every naturalist, conservationist and angler, was a priceless asset, for a small reduction in the cost of water supplies. We can only hope that generations in the future will realise that what has been done is an act of vandalism, and that it will not then be too late to restore these once splendid little rivers and the wildlife they once supported.

Old Hitchin Life, Christmas 1981

This page was last updated on 6 March 2007