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The River Ancholme is a river in Lincolnshire, England, and a tributary of the Humber estuary. It rises south of Bishopbridge (west of Market Rasen) and flows north through the market town of Brigg before flowing into the Humber at South Ferriby. It drains a significant part of northern Lincolnshire between the Trent and the North Sea. The river has been used by humans since at least 800 BCE, confirmed by the excavation of a planked boat at Brigg, and patents covering improvements to the river are known from 1287 onwards. Major change occurred in 1635, when a new straight channel was constructed from Bishopbridge to Ferriby. The new channel carries most of the water and is known as the ''New River Ancholme'', whereas the ''Old River Ancholme'' maintains its natural course, meandering from side to side. The old course is mostly reduced to a drain, except around the town of Brigg where the two rivers create an island in the centre of Brigg known as 'Island Carr'. Further improvements were started by John Rennie (the Elder) in the early 1800s and completed by his son in the 1820s, with the reconstruction of Ferriby Sluice taking place around 1841. From that time onwards the river was reasonably profitable, and although receipts were reduced when railways arrived in the area, trade picked up in the 1890s, and was boosted by cargoes of sugar beet in the 1930s. All commercial carrying had ceased above Brigg by the 1970s, and stopped altogether in the 1980s. The upper section was almost derelict by then, but was restored and dredged in 2004. The river is an important drainage channel for north Lincolnshire, but is also used for leisure, with boating, rowing, canoeing and fishing taking place. Responsibility for the river changed six times between 1930 and 1996, but it is now managed by the Environment Agency. The Ancholme Internal Drainage Board maintains 12 pumping stations on the banks of the river, which pump water from the surrounding low-lying land to prevent flooding. The river also supplies large volumes of water to British Steel, for use in the steel industry at Scunthorpe, and to Anglian Water, who use it to provide a public water supply to the South Humber bank industrial area. In order to maintain this volume of abstraction during the summer months, and other dry periods, water is transferred from Barlings Eau, near the River Witham, by the Trent Witham Ancholme transfer scheme, commissioned in 1974. Few of the bridges which cross the river form part of a public road, and so they have not been replaced to cope with increased traffic. A number of them are listed structures, while Ferriby Lock is a scheduled ancient monument. The river is also home to two historic boats owned by the Humber Keel & Sloop Preservation Society. ==History== In its natural post-glacial state, the river's valley was flat-bottomed: it had formed the bed of the glacial Lake Ancholme, on an outwash delta, as the ice retreated,〔C. R. Twidale, "Glacial Overflow Channels in North Lincolnshire", ''Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers)'', No. 22 (1956:47-54).〕 and consequently was fenny. There is evidence that boats have used the river from early times, for there have been three significant archaeological finds of ancient boats. Logboats have been found at Brigg and Appleby, and a planked boat was found at Brigg in 1888. Professor McGrail conducted a re-excavation of the site in 1974, to discover the bottom of a flat-bottomed boat, made from oak planks, sewn together and caulked with moss. The boat was thus similar in construction to the Ferriby Boats found on the northern shore of the Humber, but was some 500 years younger, being carbon-dated to around 800 BCE. Despite suffering from silting as a result of water from the Humber entering it, and passing through land which was often waterlogged on both sides, the Ancholme offered a route into the communities of northern Lincolnshire. Cargo was carried on it from an early date: in 1287 a patent was granted to allow improvements to be made from Bishopbridge to Ferriby, so that boats could more easily carry grain and other commodities on the river "as they had done formerly". However, the major concern of the local landowners seems to have been that it should act as an effective drainage channel to prevent inundation of their lands, and between 1289 and 1418 the river was mentioned in the Patent Rolls thirteen times. The need to keep the channel scoured was always mentioned, but often, navigation was not. The river was subject to a repeated cycle of concerns being raised, improvements being made, euphoria at the result, and decline through neglect. However, in 1635 Owersby-based local landowner Sir John Monson was granted powers to construct a new river for drainage purposes. He removed most of the meanders, to create a new straight channel from Bishopbridge to Ferriby. The patent under which the work was carried out was again chiefly concerned with drainage, although there was a requirement to make sure that any new works did not make the river less useful for the passage of boats than it had been for the previous seven years. At Ferriby, where there had been a bridge since 1312, a sluice was constructed, to control the deposition of silt from the Humber. It had three arches and 24 doors, but there is no mention of how boats could pass through it. At Brigg, the new channel bypassed the town, but the old channel was also retained, which made the town less vulnerable to flooding. The draining of the Ancholme Level was a lesser project among the fenland "improvements" undertaken under contracts to patentees by the government of Charles I in the 1630s. It was somewhat less brutal than many such projects, for Kennedy states that "... with the possible exception of the Ancholme Level the draining of the fens was executed and defended by a continuous and unscrupulous use of the power and authority of the royal government to manipulate local institutions and to overawe the local populace."〔Mark E. Kennedy, "Charles I and Local Government: The Draining of the East and West Fens" ''Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies'' 15.1 (Spring 1983):19-31)〕 The antiquarian William Stukeley visited the river and in 1724 published a report in which he lamented the fact that the sluices below the stately bridge were "broken down and lying in dismal ruins by the negligence of the undertakers." Conditions continued to deteriorate, so that in 1766, landowners in the Ancholme floodplain contracted Thomas Yeoman to survey the river. He pointed to the decay of Ferriby Sluice, which had resulted in silting of the navigation as far as Glanford, some above Ferriby. In places the width had been reduced from to 15 or 16 ft (about 4.8 m), which significantly reduced its capacity to cope with flood waters. Above Glanford, lugworm beds, weeds and sandbanks impeded progress, and the final to Bishopbridge was completely silted up. Yeoman produced his report on 17 September 1766, and an Act of Parliament to authorise improvements to both navigation and drainage was granted on 20 May 1767. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「River Ancholme」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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