HERTFORDSHIRE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. lix 



%vhicli only flow after periods of excessive rainfall, usually at 

 intervals of from about three to seven years. Occasionally it fills 

 the culvert and flows over the road, adding a considerable volume 

 of water to the River Bulborne. 



There is no historical record of the flowing of the ■Bourne in 

 olden times. Our county historians, Chauncy, Salmon, and 

 Clutterbuck, do not allude even to the existence of such a stream, 

 nor does Camden or his commentators, although he mentions 

 another intermittent Hertfordshire stream. " Redhorn,^'' he says, 

 is remarkable " for a brook in its neighbourhood named Wenmer, 

 which the common people believe never swells or rises witho.ut 

 presaging scarcity or some misfortune."* To this Gough adds : 

 " The brook mentioned by Mr. Camden is called Womer, and in 

 Magna Britannia, I. 490, Wohorne Mere, q.d. the brook or mere of 

 woe, and, like that at N. Tanton, Devon, and that before mentioned 

 in Bedfordshire, presages calamity. It particularly did so," he 

 continues, "in the reign of Edward IV. when it burst out, and 

 run from Feb. 14 to June 14 ; from which Norden fancies the 

 neighbouring Market street hath its name corrupted from Mer-gate, 

 q.d. an issue or out-gate of water. "| 



The earliest notice of the Hertfordshire Bourne appears to be so 

 recent as 1876, when an account of it was given by Mr. John 

 Evans, D.C.L., F.R.S., in a paper read before our Society, in which 

 he records its flowing in that year, in 1873, and in 1853, and says 

 that it also probably flowed in 1860 and 1866.;]: 



Although historical records thus appear to be wanting, the valley 

 of the Bourne furnishes evidence, in the extensive denudation 

 which has resulted in its formation, of the existence of a stream 

 most probably long before historic times. For five miles from the 

 point where it flows into the Bulborne, this stream, in its occasional 

 appearance above the surface, has cut a valley of considerable 

 depth and at least a mile in width, through the glacial gravel and 

 sand, and the clay-with-flints, into the Chalk which forms its bed. 

 That it ran in olden times is also proved by its now forming a 

 county boundary for a considerable part of its course. 



At the time of the present visit the Bourne had been flowing for 

 about two months, and to trace it to its source a large number of 

 members, ladies forming the majority, assembled at Bourne End, 

 and under the guidance of Mr. John Evans followed the course of 

 the stream from its outpour into the Bulborne to its source in a 

 meadow a little to the west of Haresfoot Park, and about two 

 miles from Berkhampstead, Mr. T. A. Dorrien Smith, over whose 

 property it flows, having kindly granted the necessary permission. 



It soon became evident that the recent dry weather had materially 

 afPected the volume of the stream, and its source was found to have 

 lately receded at least half a mile. Pools of standing water still 



* Camden's 'Britannia,' edited by Gou<jli, vol. ii, p. 63. f Ih. p. 73. 



X ' Trans. "Watford Nat. Hist. Soc.,' Vol. I, p. 137. Cussans appears to be 

 our first county historian who refers to the Bourne. ' Hist. Herts, Dacorura 

 Hundred,' p. 48. 



