The River Ancholme is a river in Lincolnshire, England, and a tributary of the Humber. It rises at Ancholme Head, a spring just north of the village of InghamGrid ref: SK 96675 85014 and immediately west of the Roman Road, Ermine Street. It flows east and then north to Bishopbridge west of Market Rasen,Grid ref: TF 03163 91070 where it is joined by the Rase. North of there it flows through the market town of Brigg before draining into the Humber at South Ferriby. It drains a large part of northern Lincolnshire between the Trent and the North Sea.
The river has been used by humans since at least 800 BC, seen by the excavation of a planked boat at Brigg. Letters patent for 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, the New River Ancholme, whereas the Old River Ancholme still meanders. The latter is mostly reduced to a ditch, save around Brigg's central '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. Receipts fell when railways arrived locally but trade picked up in the 1890s, and was boosted by cargoes of sugar beet in the 1930s. All commercial carrying ceased: above Brigg by the 1970s; altogether as of the 1980s. Upper reaches were in places part-blocked so were restored and dredged in 2004. The river is used for leisure, with boating, rowing, canoeing and fishing taking place. Responsibility or merely the name of the body for the river changed six times between 1930 and 1996, ending with the Environment Agency.
The Ancholme Internal Drainage Board maintains twelve pumping stations which can pump water from the surrounding low-lying land to prevent flooding. The river is used by Scunthorpe Steelworks, and Anglian Water supplying the South Humber bank industrial area. To meet these needs in many dry times water is transferred from Barlings Eau, near the Witham, by the Trent-Witham-Ancholme transfer scheme, commissioned in 1974.
Some bridges are private rights of way – remaining such as conscious of the risk of driver shortcutting and over-use – many such are listed (statutorily protected for architectural merit or age). Similarly, Ferriby Lock is a scheduled ancient monument. Local moorings host 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 BC.
Further evidence of the local importance of the river in prehistory is evidenced by other finds or archaeology close to the river's course. As an example, in the parish of Bishop Norton, which is situated just over 1 km north of Bishopbridge. In this parish the Lincolnshire Historical Environment Record (HER) records just under 90 sites, from different historic periods. The majority of the prehistorical sites, including settlements, are close to the Ancholme. Most of these range from the Neolithic (4000 BCE to 2351 BCE), through the Bronze Age to the Romano-British period. The oldest find in the parish was a Paleolithic handaxe discovered close to the site of the Harlam Hill Lock on a hummock of river gravels. This find dates anywhere from 500,000 BCE to 150,001 BCE.Lincolnshire HER record 50829 This axe, along with several Neolithic axes are now in Lincoln Museum.
The course of the old river acts as a boundary for Bishop Norton and all the other parishes that abut it. This being the eastern boundary; the western boundary is Ermine Street. The fact that the majority of archaeology in the parish, as recorded in the HER that dates from after the construction of the Roman Road, tends to the western end of the parish close to the Roman road, and that from earlier periods tends to be closer to the river is suggestive that the River was a primary communications route as well as the provider of physical and economic need which was supplanted by the new road.
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 the (7 Geo. 3. c. 98) to authorise improvements to both navigation and drainage was granted on 20 May 1767.
Development
The River Ancholme Navigation and Drainage Act 1766 created commissioners, and John Bennett from Barton-upon-Humber was appointed clerk. The minutes of the commissioners show that their major concern was with drainage, rather than navigation, although the new sluice at Ferriby included a lock and a house for the lock keeper. The sluice was built with three openings, but the sills were set at a level which was above the low water level of spring tides in the Humber, which was not low enough to ensure the drainage of the lowlands in times of flood. The work was completed in 1769.
The commissioners gradually realised that navigation might be beneficial, and on 7 April 1778 instructed their engineer, Dunderdale, to design a wharf for coal and general goods at Bishopbridge, and to construct a lock at Harlam Hill. No progress was made until 20 July 1785, when the commissioners met the proprietors to arrange the purchase of land for the wharf. By this time the engineer had been replaced by Thomas Bradley. The tolls had been leased to Jonathan and John Goodwin for a period of eleven years from 1781. They paid the commissioners £402 per year, and were expected to make good any damage by tides up to the value of £20, although the commissioners would pay for repairs where the cost exceeded £20. The lease expired on 2 July 1792, when the commissioners took back control, and appointed their own collector of tolls. They noticed a disparity in the tolls for coal, caused by the differing sizes of the wagons at various collieries. The collieries mentioned show that coal was arriving from the River Don Navigation and the Aire and Calder Navigation.
During the 1790s, the problems of effective drainage worsened, and the commissioners appointed Isaac Leatham, from Barton near Malton, to produce a comprehensive report with recommendations for the Ancholme Level. He addressed the issues of both drainage and navigation, and presented his plans on 29 August 1800, but commissioners thought the projected cost of £22,975 was excessive. They therefore approached John Rennie (the Elder) for a second opinion, and he produced a report on 9 November 1801. His proposals included constructing catchwater drains on either side of the main channel, enlarging the width and depth of the channel, building two new locks, and rebuilding the road bridge at Brigg. The cost was estimated to be £53,921, of which only 11 per cent was for improvements to navigation. Again, the commissioners were unhappy with the cost, and although Rennie suggested completing the work in stages, he later produced a modified plan which would only cost £25,413.