page_title: River Kennet
section_title: Navigation
hierarchical_section_title: River Kennet / Navigation
caption_attribution_description: The County Lock of the Kennet Navigation taken from the IDR footbridge. The Loch Fyne Restaurant is to the left. In the distance you see the beginning of the Oracle shopping centre and Bridge Street.
context_page_description: The Kennet is the largest tributary of the River Thames, Southern England. Most of the river is straddled by the North Wessex Downs AONB. The lower reaches have been made water-navigable as the Kennet Navigation. This, together with the Avon Navigation, the Kennet and Avon Canal and the Thames, links the cities of Bristol and London.
  From near its sources west of Marlborough, Wiltshire down to Woolhampton, Berkshire is a 111.1-hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest. This is primarily from an array of rare plants and animals completely endemic to chalky watercourses.
  When Wiltshire had second-tier local authorities, one, Kennet took the name of the river.
context_section_description: The Horseshoe Bridge at Kennet Mouth, a timber-clad iron-truss structure, was built in 1891 as a way for horses towing barges along the Thames to cross the Kennet.
  Going upstream, the first mile of the river, from Kennet Mouth to the High Bridge in Reading, has been navigable since at least the 13th century, providing wharfage for both the townspeople and Reading Abbey. Originally this short stretch of navigable river was under the control of the Abbey; today, including Blake's Lock, it is administered by the Environment Agency as if it were part of the River Thames.
  From High Bridge through to Newbury, the river was made navigable between 1718 and 1723 under the supervision of the engineer John Hore of Newbury. Known as the Kennet Navigation, this stretch of the river is now administered by the Canal & River Trust as part of the Kennet and Avon Canal. Throughout the navigation, stretches of natural river bed alternate with 11 miles (18 km) of artificially created lock cuts, and a series of locks including County, Fobney, Southcote, Burghfield, Garston, Sheffield, Sulhamstead and Tyle Mill overcome a rise of 130 feet (40 m).
caption: County Lock, Reading
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