Lark and Linnet

Debris in still water.

The beautiful Abbott's Bridge spanning the Lark.

 I am unhappy to notice, when I walk through the Abbey Gardens most early mornings that the tiny stream which is the River Lark, is stationary, resembling stagnant water with, in parts, algae forming. I love the name of the river and the fact that it is one of few chalk streams, most of which in England are situated in Suffolk, but in Bury, it is looking in a distressed state. The Lark, a tributary of the River Ouse, rises in Bradfield Combust and crosses the border between Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, with the Lark Valley Path following the meandering flow of the river as it winds its way from Bury St Edmunds to Mildenhall providing stunning views. But the state of the visible water in the Abbey Gardens does give pause for thought though there is a team of volunteers which does its best to improve the sluggish status quo.

Lark-cleaning volunteers in action.

Because of this observation, I looked up the St Edmundsbury Chronicle online to find, to my delight, a long and detailed history of the River Lark from 1600, astonishing in its detail. I have dipped and dived into it, quite quickly giving up the unequal struggle to summarise it, but unable to resist one or two or more, interesting historical markers of its history and noting, not for the first time, how much of the unfolding of everyday life can be found in the narrative of one important entity, like a river.

In Roman times, the Lark was an early canal from Isleham to Prickwillow. This was probably to ship out church, hardened chalk known as Tottenhoe Stone as a building material, from Clunch Pits at Isleham. An early name for the river was the Burne but the River Larke name seems to have been established by the early 17th century. The first serious known attempt since Roman times to improve the River Lark for navigation took place in 1621. Plans were prepared by John Gason of Finchley and authorisation sought through Parliament but the endeavour failed. In 1635 a Henry Lambe obtained permission to improve navigation of the river from Mildenhall to Bury St Edmunds in recognition of the need to reduce transportation costs incurred by road. Suspicion from mill owners, led by landowners, Sir Roger North and Thomas Steward, claiming that the

18th century Horstead Mill, Norfolk.
Mill owners were powerful people!

contractors were damaging their mills, succeeded in stopping Lambe’s work. Undeterred, Lambe persisted and eventually, in 1637 Charles 1 granted Lambe a license to proceed with his improvements, for an annual fee of £6.13.4 with permission for Lambe to charge a toll along the Lark from Bury to Mildenhall. As no further records exist of any subsequent developments, it is assumed that the Civil War stopped Lambe’s work and no further improvements happened for another 60 years.

In 1693 Henry Ashley, proprietor of the Great Ouse Navigation, turned his attention to the River Lark which had become silted up and was no longer suitable for barge traffic. He had plans to canalise the Lark and run barges up to Bury St Edmunds, thus restoring ancient trade links to Kings Lynn. Once 'his' canal was in place, between 1716 and 1855 the River Lark was a busy waterway linking Bury St Edmunds with Ely, Cambridge and Kings Lynn. There were certain weaknesses in the system however often involving uncooperative local landowners and their commercial interests, but even slow water transport was more efficient than roads at the time, although these shortcomings gradually reduced as road transport improved.

Daniel Defoe, in 1774, described the river at Bury as:

“a very small river, or rather a very small branch of a small river ….. which runs from Milden Hall on the edge of the fens…….They have made this river navigable to the said Milden Hall from which there is a navigable dyke which goes into the river Ouse and so to Lynn, so that all their [Bury’s] coal, wine, iron, lead and other goods are brought by water from Lynn, or from London by way of Lynn, to the ease of the tradesmen.”

First train into Bury, 1845

Between 1820-46 the Cullum family made improvements to the Lark until stopped by the impact of the coming of the railways. And around a century after Defoe, The Mildenhall Almanack of 1882 reported:

1996 More channel-straightening.
"The hapless Lark, which once meandered
gently through water meadows, neatly packaged
into an outsize concrete canyon. No water vole
would dream of venturing here, nor otter, purple
strife or figwort" Roger Deakin.

“The River Lark as a water highway …… is practically closed. Within a few years the traffic extended to Fornham, now above Mildenhall, a barge is never seen. The whole course of the river is choked with weeds, on which, during floods, heavy deposits of soil have accumulated, which renders navigation impossible.” In the same year [1882] the footbridge across the River Lark located in the Abbey Gardens, was built for the use of scholars at the new home of the King Edward V1 Grammar School which was being built at the time in the Vinefields. An interesting social footnote.

After 1905 the Lark slowly declined into a drainage river and, following disastrous floods in 1968 the flood relief scheme involving channel-straightening and concrete flood walls was instigated with more channel-straightening in 1996 when Tesco was built.

Barge on the River Lark, 1910.

 This somewhat potted version of the detailed history of the River Lark, is based on the more thorough historical account given on the St Edmundsbury Chronicle site which is well worth reading. It provides a fascinating glimpse of a community’s river-based history and it shows that the state of today’s sluggish Lark is an echo of aspects of former times; the Lark has struggled over the centuries against weeds, human obstacles, commercial contra-interests and social developments plus additional diminutions.

The River Linnet. Virtually no history of the Linnet was found, it,  presumably, being smaller and less important than the Lark with which it unites in the Abbey Gardens.
But, here it is, in its understated, tranquil beauty.

Baptisms in the River Lark in May 1917.
There was a minor fashion for river baptism in the
twentieth century until 1970.

Image taken from a watercolour painted in 1725; engraved
for printing by R.Godfrey in 1729. On the extreme left is the dovecote
still there today. Also shown is one arm of the River Linnet flowing
 immediately in front of the dovecote. In this period, 
the Lark and the Linnet ran parallel to each other, 
until they joined under the Abbot's Bridge.