West Wight People and Place: Carol Flux and the Caul Bourne
What gives an area its sense of place? The answer to this question might lie in the landscape or in the distinctive buildings of the place. Community interaction may also be important, as well as a sense of wellbeing and culture or the knowledge that people may hold for their immediate surroundings.
The strength and diversity of the local economy may also feature as well as any attachment that people hold for the area, be they visitors, recent newcomers or born and bred residents who can trace their family ties back generations.
In an attempt to answer this question, Pete Johnstone set himself a challenge and that was to find the sense of place of West Wight through photographing people living and working in the area and asking them about their connection to this largely rural area. This is Pete’s second West Wight People and Place challenge with this time having an emphasis on the Island’s Biosphere Reserve status acquired in 2019.
Carol Flux sampling water along the Caul Bourne.
I met with Carol Flux on the banks of the Caul Bourne in west Wight. As I arrived, she was sampling water quality at several points along the river.
For 20 years, Carol has worked for Natural Enterprise, a local charity that focuses on the synergy between the economy and the natural environment.
Carol grew up in Cowes and other than a brief interlude on the mainland has lived on the Isle of Wight all her life.
She previously focused on the economic work of Natural Enterprise but now works on the environmental side, including with the Gift to Nature project, which has more than 30 sites across the Island.
The Caul Bourne is one of the lesser-known Island rivers but is fascinating all the same. The river and its tributaries rise from a series of springs emerging on the northern flanks of the Isle of Wight’s central chalk ridge. The spring-fed pond in Westover Manor on the edge of Calbourne village is the source of the main river. It runs on through to Winkle Street, Fullingmills Farm, Calbourne Mill and Calbourne Lower Mill. It then flows for less than four miles across soft Tertiary sands and clays before entering Shalfleet Lake, part of the Newtown estuary, and on to join the Solent.
Carol Flux at Winkle Street, formally known as Barrington Row, part of the village of Calbourne. It is very likely that the Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson visited Winkle Street. He was a close friend of the Simeon family who succeeded the Barrington’s at nearby Swainston Manor. The street’s current name remains a mystery.
In times gone by the Caul Bourne would have been of more economic and cultural significance than it is today. Of all the five mills that were once powered by the Caul Bourne, only the Calbourne Water Mill is still in use today. But it has supplied water for people and livestock for many centuries.
Calbourne Mill is a working mill and visitor attraction.
Calbourne Mill. The Domesday Book, 1086 mentions two mills at Calbourne.
Bankside vegetation. Well managed areas of bankside vegetation such as here at Calbourne Mill can provide good cover for wildlife.
Like Carol, the Caul Bourne has strong environmental credentials. It forms part of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and where the river runs into Newtown estuary, a National Nature Reserve. This area and stretch of coastline is also designated as a Ramsar site. The Ramsar Convention gives international recognition to important wetland habitats around the world.
A long abandoned structure provides a glimpse to the river’s past working life.
The Caul Bourne runs through an area where ‘catchment sensitive farming’ is encouraged. The Isle of Wight River Catchments Partnership brings together local people and organisations to plan and deliver positive actions that will improve our water environment.
Catchment sensitive farming aims to reduce sediment, nutrient and pesticide run-off from farms through advice and grants to farmers.
Carol explains that the Catchment Partnership is hosted by Natural Enterprise and supported by a diverse range of core partners and wider stakeholders. They have adopted what is known as a ‘catchment-based approach’:
To deliver positive and sustained outcomes for the water environment by promoting a better understanding of the environment at a local level; and
To encourage local collaboration and more transparent decision-making when both planning and delivering activities to improve the water environment.
To produce a Catchment Management Plan.
Shalfleet Lake - The Caul Bourne flows into the lake which later joins the Newtown River.
Carol is keen to see the public get involved with the work they do too: “We have a super website , jammed full of information on the Island’s water courses, walks, best practice and river management – and you can sign up for the bi-annual newsletter.
“You can join our volunteer group, where we remove invasive non-native plants from certain rivers where the plants are causing a problem. We also have an active Facebook group so people can keep in contact and updated on what’s happening on the Island rivers.”
Fallen trees and woody debris can create deeper pools and shingle areas creating diversity along the river bed.
I asked Carol why the Caul Bourne is important or unusual. “Our water courses are so important to us and have a huge aesthetic value as well as contributing to our well-being in numerous ways.
“Because we are on an Island, we don’t have the long rivers that you get on the ‘mainland’.” ‘The mainland’ or ‘North Island’ is how some Islanders refer to the rest of the UK.
The Island’s rivers were once tributaries of major water courses, Carol explains. This was before sea levels rose as the ice melted after the last Ice Age.
“Now they are truncated on the north of the Island by estuaries,” Carol continues. “The Caul Bourne is only one of two water courses on the Island that is classified as a chalk stream, even though most of the time it does not flow through chalk. This is special as chalk streams are nationally quite rare.”
Sadly, the Environment Agency classes the Caul Bourne as of ‘Moderate Ecological Status’, “which essentially means ‘could do better’”, says Carol. “Humans have impacted on rivers’ ability to function, and there is a need to rebalance the needs of people and nature.”
The Caul Bourne has been physically modified for centuries, mainly for milling. This hampers, and indeed halts fish movement. While fish may happily occupy small stretches, there is ultimately nowhere for them to go. If they are then struck by a pollution incident or disease, they are very vulnerable.
A Matthew Saunders, Miller (water) was registered to be living at Shalfleet Mill in 1904 (Kelly's Guide to the Isle of Wight).
Carol says there are solutions: “It is possible to put in fish and eel passages – either natural or technical solutions – if the will and money is there. As a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve we rely on our farmers to produce food, but some practices are harmful to water. It’s therefore essential that we adopt sensitive farming methods, particularly near water courses.”
The Environment Agency and before them the National Rivers Authority monitored the Caul Bourne for decades. Now, through its catchment sensitive farming advisor, the Isle of Wight Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty team has started to monitor both the Caul Bourne and Thorley Brook for phosphates and nitrates.
Carol Flux on the banks of the Caul Bourne, near Newbridge.
Carol says this is not as sophisticated as the monitoring that the Environment Agency can do, “but it does help us identify which water courses are of concern and where landowners may need the assistance of the advisor.
The Caul Bourne has a number of tributaries, with the Sweetwater Stream being one. It comes off the downs and often has a high sediment load, so basically someone’s soil isn’t staying on their land.
“When we test it,” says Carol, “it gets quite high nitrate readings that indicate that fertiliser is probably ending up in the stream. Nitrates can exist in the soil and groundwater for years after application stops so we always need to investigate further. Our tests also register phosphates, which can come from the water industry or septic tanks.
The Sweetwater Stream is full of sediment as it merges with the Caul Bourne.
Finally, I ask Carol what she thinks the future is for the Caul Bourne. “It is a pretty watercourse but flows through the catchment in relative secrecy. Many People will have seen it at Winkle Street, but as it flows from Dodpits Lane through Newbridge and Shalfleet it is often hidden in woodland.
The river can be quite hidden at times when it winds its way through the wooded landscape.
“The Caul Bourne story is one of success, failure, and opportunities. The eels seem to be doing okay, but we think that there are no longer water voles in the catchment. There are opportunities to enhance fish passage, work with farmers, landowners, and the water company to improve water quality and improve public access. All of these things aren’t difficult and could happen tomorrow, if there was a groundswell from the public asking for it.”
Now there’s a challenge to all Islanders!
Newtown Harbour National Nature Reserve, where the Newtown river joins the Solent.
