page_title: River Parrett
section_title: Landscape
hierarchical_section_title: River Parrett / History / Landscape
caption_attribution_description: Westonzoyland Pumping Station
context_page_description: The River Parrett flows through the counties of Dorset and Somerset in South West England, from its source in the Thorney Mills springs in the hills around Chedington in Dorset. Flowing northwest through Somerset and the Somerset Levels to its mouth at Burnham-on-Sea, into the Bridgwater Bay nature reserve on the Bristol Channel, the Parrett and its tributaries drain an area of 660 square miles – about 50 per cent of Somerset's land area, with a population of 300,000.
  The Parrett's main tributaries include the Rivers Tone, Isle, and Yeo, and the River Cary via the King's Sedgemoor Drain. The 37-mile long river is tidal for 19 miles up to Oath. The fall of the river between Langport and Bridgwater is only 1 foot per mile, so it is prone to frequent flooding in winter and during high tides. Many approaches have been tried since at least the medieval period to reduce the incidence and effect of floods and to drain the surrounding fields.
  In Anglo-Saxon times the river formed a boundary between Wessex and Dumnonia. It later served the Port of Bridgwater, and enabled cargoes to be transported inland.
context_section_description: The River Parrett, the Bristol Channel and the Severn Estuary are believed to have been used for riverine bulk transportation of people and supplies in Somerset under Roman and later Anglo-Saxon and Norman occupation. Roman Somerset, which lasted for over 250 years until around the beginning of the 5th century, had various settlements, including Bath (Aquae Sulis), Ilchester (Lindinis) and lead mines at Charterhouse; and four roads surrounding the Somerset Levels. There is evidence of two Roman ports on the Parrett. The port at Combwich, on the west bank, was ill-recorded before its destruction by quarrying and erosion. The other at Crandon Bridge on the east bank near where the current King's Sedgemoor Drain enters the Parrett, was in use between the first and the fourth centuries. Evidence of an extensive site with storehouses was found in the mid-1970s, during motorway construction works. The Crandon Bridge site may have been linked by a probable Roman road over the Polden Hills to the Fosse Way, at Ilchester. Ilchester, the largest Roman town in Somerset, was a port with large granaries, sited where the Fosse Way crossed the Ilchester Yeo by means of a paved ford. The Yeo was navigable by small craft all the way to the Parrett allowing military supplies to be brought by boat directly to Ilchester; however, disembarkation at Crandon Bridge and use of the Polden Hills roadway allowed more rapid movement to Ilchester. The Yeo may already have been straightened and canalised before Roman occupation.
  The Parrett was established as the border between the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex and the Brythonic kingdom of Dumnonia in 658, following the Dumnonians' defeat at the Battle of Peonnum that year. This natural border endured for almost a century until further fighting between the Anglo-Saxons and Britons in the mid-8th century, when the border shifted west to its current location between the modern ceremonial counties of Somerset and Devon. It is thought a ford, usable only at low tide, crossed the river near its mouth, between Combwich and Pawlett (east bank). This crossing, at the western end of the Polden Hills, was known since Roman times and lay on the route of a Saxon herepath. It was here, or in the immediate vicinity, that Hubba, the Danish raider, was defeated and killed by Odda in 878. In the Domesday Book Combwich was known as Comich, which means "the settlement by the water", from the Old English cumb and wic. The ford was later replaced by a ferry, one of which was in operation from at least the 13th century. In the 15th century the ferry was regarded as part of the King's Highway, and both passengers and cattle were carried in the 16th and 17th centuries. Records of the joint Manorial ownership and costs of the ferry exist for 1589 and 1810. The White House Inn, a licensed victualler and part-owner of the ferry, traded on the Pawlett bank from 1655 to 1897; the building was retained as a farm dwelling for another 20 years. The Combwich river crossing, which was a main route until the 18th century, fell out of use due to turnpike trusts improving what were to become the A38 and A39 roads, and traffic went via Bridgwater; the former inn was demolished c. 1930.
  After the departure of the Romans, the low-lying Somerset Levels appear to have been abandoned, as the archaeological record shows that they were flooded and the former Roman landscape covered with a thick layer of alluvial deposits. Recovery of the levels involved both the construction of sea walls and the containment of the Parrett. Celtic Christianity came to the remoter areas of the Somerset Levels, making use of "island" sites. Glastonbury Abbey, possibly founded in the 7th century (or earlier), was nearby and had undertaken extensive water management to enable it to bring materials by boat to Glastonbury, albeit not via the Parrett. Muchelney Abbey, founded in the mid-8th century, was sited at the confluence of the Parrett and its tributaries, the rivers Isle and Yeo; and Athelney Abbey lay on another tributary, the River Tone. These three abbeys tog
caption: Westonzoyland Pumping Station Museum
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