River Windrush
The River Windrush is a stream and river in the English Cotswolds in the upper Thames catchment. It gives its name to the Gloucestershire village.River
The Windrush starts in the Cotswold Hills in Gloucestershire northeast of Taddington, which is north of Guiting Power, Temple Guiting, Ford and Cutsdean. It flows for about : through Bourton-on-the-Water, by the village of Windrush, Gloucestershire, into Oxfordshire and through Burford, Witney, Ducklington and Standlake. It meets the Thames at Newbridge upstream of Northmoor Lock.
The river-name Windrush is first attested in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 779, where it appears as Uuenrisc. It appears as Wenris and Wænric in charters of 949, and Wenríc in one of 969. The name means 'white fen', from the Welsh gwyn and the Old Celtic reisko.
The river was host to fish, including trout, grayling, perch, chub, roach and dace. It held good populations of native crayfish until at least the 1980s. River waters were used in cloth and woollen blanket making in Witney from mid 17th century. In 2007, the Windrush was one of many rivers in the area to flood. Towns and villages along the length of the river were affected, perhaps most acutely in Witney, which was cut in half by the closure of the only bridge across the river. Recently the river has been in decline, with untreated sewage discharges from water companies blamed. The river holds a much greater level of turbidity than in the past and also has algae formations consistent with regular sewage pollution.
The ship, synonymous with post-war immigration of West Indian people to the UK, was named after the river.
