Thetownend.com

....this afternoon I went on an expedition to find teh source of the Ray,  OK it wasn't Burton and Speke,  but good fun.

  Thinking about what I posted before, I assumed the Ray started at the bottom of Ladder Lane,  by the side of Burderop Wood, but thinking about it, I'd never  bothered finding the actual source.

 So I traced it back alomg the edge of Burderop Wood, which was rather fine,
 with the late winter sunshine glinting through the still denuded oak, ash stands and hazel coppice.  Plenty of moss covered sarsens made the delving in nettle and briar interesting and  the overhead mewing of buzzard made for excellent company.

 I traced it back to the M4...which somewhat spoilt my reverie.  Knowing the path on the other side pretty well, I couldn't picture a stream there, but going back around by the golf course and looking,  I found teh stream coming under the M4 and flowing by Nightingale Farm.

 Here it is joined by a number of drainage ditches, coming off the golf course, which complicate the picture,  but a bit more delving in undergrowth produced the find of a spring....neatly surrounded by small lumps of sarsen, which ws providing the flowing water into the stream.

 Ace  8)

 Tomorrow the source of the Cole.

I love you reg x

 Shame you're not a bird  :(

which golf course reg?
i'm guessing the one by jardiniere or whaever its called?

 Broome Manor.

fucking hell i'm way off course :oops:

The cole is in covingham I thought reg?

he's finding the source of named rivers. not their routes bushey.

boom boom

kerrching !

 Indeed BB,  hence Coleview....but Coate is formed from damming the Cole, as are the Shaftesbury Lakes.

  I've always assumed that the origin of the river was somehow lost in Coate Water, but am now coming round to thinking that it must be something to do with the chalk stream that flows out of Chiseldon.

I grew up in Chiseldon and used to spend much time playing in what is known locally as Washpool. The stream which makes it's way to Washpool, as i understand it, comes from the downs, or somewhere (to say it comes from somewhere is almost unbelievable i know).

We tried and failed, numerous times as deluded 10 year olds, to build a dam on Washpool to create Coate Chiseldon.

Sadly, my engineering degree was but part of my active imagination and this helped to contrbute - along with being 10 and being more interested in applying copious amounts of dog shit to peoples bike saddles and grips - to Coate Chiseldon never materialising.

Oh well, one day i'll be remembered for something other than being someone who finds it easier to shout than talk when selling a cleaning product with a stupid name.

   Perhaps you'll be reincarnated as a beaver (no not that sort)

SO does the ray start from burbling up out of broome manor? Ace

Well done reg  8)

  I like the word burbling.....