Coursing its way 25 miles from its source in Northern Worcestershire, through the industrial and urban West Midlands to South Staffordshire and back into Worcestershire, the River Stour played a significant part in our region’s industrial heritage.

Mills powered by the running waters of the Stour can be traced back to medieval times, and it was this waterpower that helped spark the industrial revolution and the founding of the countless mills for centuries before it.

There were two mills at Kinver mentioned in the Domesday book of 1086. At that time the village consisted of 28 households and was in the largest 40% of settlements recorded. To the east in Cradley, mills were first recorded in the 12^th century.

As demand altered, both corn and fulling mills (that cleansed cloth, usually wool) were converted from one type of manufacturing to another. Early Stour-powered iron forges were situated along the banks of the river and its tributaries from the 15^th century, primarily manufacturing and sharpening the blades of a variety of tools such as spades, shovels and ladles.

In the 17^th century, some began to be converted to iron slitting mills, supporting nail production in the Black Country, along with iron, glass and other industrial production which continued well into the 19^th century.

One of the most well-known ironworks in Stourbridge was the Foster and Rastrick Foundry. Founded in 1819, it was known for producing many of the early steam locomotives including the famous Stourbridge Lion, the first steam locomotive to run on rails in the United States of America in 1829.

The river was also used in many manufacturing processes, providing cooling water for factories and being utilised in the dying and carpet manufacturing industries.

The Stour also provided a vital means of transport and in the 1600s, engineer Andrew Yarranton pioneered the idea of creating a network of rivers navigable by boats to transport goods and raw materials more easily. His plan for the Stour was to make the section from Stourport to Stourbridge navigable to boats and better able to transport coal which would be brought by rail and loaded onto barges.

Several attempts were made to make the Stour navigable, but each time money ran out before completion, schemes didn’t get off the ground or some of his work was destroyed by floods.

Overall, his proposals were met with variable success, and in around 1771 the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal was completed which proved to be a much more suitable way of transporting goods from the industrial Black Country to the River Severn, Bristol and beyond.

As the Black Country grew and more of the population moved to the area for employment, so the urbanisation of the upper River Stour expanded. All along its banks, from Halesowen to Stourbridge, villages and hamlets grew into sprawling towns known for their industries, from nail making, chain making, ironworks, blast furnaces to coal mining.

The Stour was once one of the most lifeless of rivers in the Britain. It was biologically dead, and nothing could live in it because the waters were so toxic. It ran the colour of khaki, and it was said that you could smell it before you could see it. In fact, at Kidderminster the river ran a different colour every day of the week from the carpet factories, except on Sundays when it was brown as all work ceased and the dye colours mixed together.  Mills, forges and factory weirs (and other man-made barriers) prevented fish migration.

As the industrial heyday slowly drew to a close, the upper Stour emerged as a very urbanised area. Where once meadows and ancient woodlands had been, housing estates now stood and they brought with them all the pressures of urbanisation.

The river’s course has been altered over time. In places it has been artificially straightened, in others its natural banks have disappeared entirely to be replaced by sheet steel pilings, where you can only gaze down into the river from vertical metal walls.

These changes have had a detrimental effect on the river. It can no longer behave as it used to, and its natural processes have been stopped.

The years of industrial activity, along with the disposal of manufacturing waste, have taken an enormous toll on the Stour and its inhabitants are still adversely affected to this day. If you’ve ever visited the river when the flows are low, you may have noticed a green/blue cloudiness to the water. Nobody can be certain about the cause, but a likely reason may be due to chemicals and metals from past industry still leaching into the water. Efforts are still being made to identify the cause to hopefully be able to resolve it in the future.

Since the latter part of the 20^th century, industry has decreased and laws and regulations have been developed to care for and protect the river. Sadly though, the Stour is still being polluted by litter and fly tipping, runoff from roads and housing estates, and raw sewage.

People are often surprised that water companies are permitted to dispose of raw sewage directly into waterways. This should only be carried out when systems are overwhelmed, typically caused by heavy or prolonged rainfall and blockages. Blockages from fat, oil and grease going down kitchen sinks are a big problem and in extreme cases can cause huge obstructions known as fatbergs.

Baby wipes and sanitary items being flushed down toilets are also a major issue contributing to blockages, as well as river pollution as most of these are plastic based and often find their way into the River Stour through these raw sewage releases. Misconnections into clean surface water drains can cause sewage and grey water to leak into the river as well.

A natural river should be wild, free flowing and constantly changing, with fallen trees, deep pools, meanders and shallow gravel riffles. They should support huge amounts of wildlife, both along its banks and within its waters. Despite the centuries of industry, in some places the Stour can still been seen to behave in its natural state, where it is home to a large array of species. In addition, we’ve already seen an improvement in the water quality within the last few decades. The river is now cleaner than at any time during its industrial past, but there is still more to be done.

Our vision is to restore the Stour to as close to its natural condition as possible; a thriving river, rich in diverse species with good water quality flowing through green corridors which support a wide range of flora and fauna for everyone can enjoy.

Historically the River Stour was always known for its salmonid populations, in particular brown trout, and slowly but surely, we are seeing the return of these fish. Other returning species include eels, chub, perch and roach. Smaller species such as sticklebacks and bottom dwelling fish including bullheads and stone loach are also increasing thanks to the number of freshwater invertebrates present in the river that they depend upon. These fish species support wildlife such as herons and kingfishers, along with otters and other mammals.

The man-made weirs and barriers are slowly being removed, allowing for increased upstream and downstream movement of fish species. This is especially good for fish that need to migrate upstream to their spawning areas. Our hope is that salmon, currently found in the lower River Stour within Worcestershire, might migrate once more up into the headwaters to their historical spawning gravels.

About Love Your River Stour

This year, our Love Your River Stour work is focused across four main sites around Halesowen, Stourbridge and Wolverhampton. We run weekly practical conservation volunteer days at two of these sites; Smestow Valley Local Nature Reserve in Wolverhampton and Stambermill in Stourbridge.

We also hold events and visit community initiatives across the region to spread the word about our work and support those who want to learn how to protect waterways through small changes that everyone can make. Our staff, together with local volunteers, are making good progress with restoring areas of the river corridor.

As part of the Love Your River Stour project, we are:

• Improving habitats within the river corridor to provide biodiverse habitats and havens for wildlife to live and move throughout the urban black country
• Enhancing and creating wildflower meadow areas

In Britain, we have lost around 97% of our wildflower meadows within the last 100 years. They have become a scarce and threatened habitat, contributing to the decline of many pollinating insects, so work needs to be done to increase these habitats and the associated biodiversity which they support in the areas along the Stour Valley.

• Reinstating and creating ponds and wetland areas
• Planting hedgerows and orchards of local heritage varieties of apples, pears, and plums, many of which are very rare
• Improving woodlands through strategic canopy thinning and under-story/ground flora planting
• Revealing old pathways to make the river and green spaces more accessible

We are also working on propagating one of Britain’s rarest native tree species, native black poplar, which is a river floodplain and wetland tree. They can help to alleviate flooding, providing shade and shelter and reducing river water temperatures along with many other riverside and riparian trees, and supporting a huge array of insects, birds and bats.

All this work will provide a much wider array of habitats that allow a larger range of invertebrates, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds places to live and thrive. We are helping to enhance an important green corridor for wildlife movement through the urban Black Country that links western Birmingham to South Staffordshire and Northern Worcestershire. This reduces fragmentation of species and increases their chances of survival against climate change and development.