Sweeps Ditch at Staines

Introduction

The photograph on this page of Sweeps Ditch at Staines by Sean Davis as part of the Geograph project.

The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.

There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk

Sweeps Ditch at Staines

Image: © Sean Davis Taken: 6 Nov 2012

Just east of the footbridge which joins Two Rivers Shopping Centre to Church Street, and where the Colne and Wraysbury rivers meet is a small section of a dried up water channel. This was from where the River Colne originally fed Sweeps Ditch. Sweeps Ditch was an ancient man-made mill stream or defence ditch which flowed through Staines. In Roman & Medieval Times it formed the western and northern boundary of Town Island (sometimes referred to as High Street Island). However, with the building of the Elmsleigh Shopping Centre and the redevelopment of the town centre in the 1970s, the water source was cut. A new water source was provided by Thames Water in 1982, when it installed a pump house in the Riverside car park and this takes water from the Thames. However, the stream no longer goes through the centre of the town, instead it goes underground in a pipe across Thames Street and South Street and re-emerges to the south-east of the town centre, before flowing east and south to rejoin the Thames over a mile downstream near Penton Hook Lock.

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Image Location

coordinates on a map icon
Latitude
51.434401
Longitude
-0.51415