River Frome - May 2011

During my week off work I decided to focus on my next piece about the River Frome. This is the second installment about my local river and one tinged with sadness and concern.

For this piece I had hoped to capture some of the delights of the upper reaches of this little trout river. I took a walk through Siccaridge Wood near Sapperton, where the path of the Frome winds its way through the beautiful Costwold countryside, woodlands and meadows on its way to Stroud. At this time of year I've previously observed May Flies (Ephemera sp.) and Kingfishers, both of which are good indicators of a healthy river environment.

This time however, there was no river. All that was visible was simply the bare bones of the river bed like some fossilized relic hinting at a previous existence. Consequently, no Mayfly observed; no trout observed; and no kingfishers observed. An entire ecosystem has disappeared.

Dried up gravel bed with land-based plants beginning to colonize

Gloucestershire is a notoriously wet county but we've had a few significantly dry winters in recent years and I suspect this is the primary reason for the absence of flowing water in this stretch of the Frome. The river is spring-fed from sources further north, up as far as Birdlip. The natural springs in the hills where I live are bone dry at present and this is probably the case with the source springs of the Frome. I have heard some worrying stories of farmers routing spring water in a bid to avoid the cost of water being supplied by water companies. If that were true it would have a marked deleterious effect in the present circumstances, but would be relatively unnoticed in 'normal' conditions.

This stretch should be at least knee-deep. Wouldn't you just love to fish it?

If conditions do return to more typical cycles of mild, wet winters then there's every chance this stretch of the Frome will recover. Nature is always quick to re-colonize, often in spectacular style, but it will take a couple of seasons once the flows do return. For now, let's hope the lower reaches of the Frome, where aquatic wildlife currently thrives, does not fall victim to the diminishing water table.