Beaulieu River

The current name, Beaulieu is French, meaning "beautiful place". The original name, Exe, is Brythonic, deriving from the Ancient British word *Iska meaning "fishes" or "fish-place" and cognate with the modern Welsh word Pysg (fishes). This derivation applies to many similarly named rivers throughout Britain including the Axe, Exe and Usk, with the names evolving local distinctions over the centuries.

The Beaulieu River rises near Lyndhurst in the centre of the New Forest, a zone where copses and scattered trees interrupt the relatively neutral sandy heath soil, however with insufficient organic uneroded deposition over millennia to prevent an upper charismatic dendritic drainage basin of many very small streams. This explains the multitude of tiny headwaters across the New Forest. Many coalesce into the flow southeast and then south across the forest heaths to the village of Beaulieu. There the river becomes tidal and once drove a tide mill in the village. The mill ceased operations in 1942.{{cite journal |last1=Plunkett |first1=David |date=2014 |title=Eling and Beaulieu Tide Mills: Restoring and Learning from the Past |url=https://www.hias.org.uk/Journal%20scans/HIAS%20Journal%202014.pdf |journal=Hampshire Industrial Archaeology Society |volume=22 |pages=26–29 |access-date=3 March 2021}} Below, the tidal river (estuary) continues to flow south-east through the Forest, passing the hamlet of Bucklers Hard and entering the Solent at Needs Ore. For its final kilometre, it is separated from The Solent by a raised salt marsh known as Gull Island.

Below Beaulieu village the river is navigable to small craft. Bucklers Hard was once a significant shipbuilding centre, building many wooden sailing ships, both merchant and naval, including Nelson's Agamemnon. Since 2000 the navigable channel at the entrance to the river has been marked by a lighthouse known as the Millennium Lighthouse or the Beaulieu River Beacon.{{cite book |last= Davison |first=Steve |title=Walking in the New Forest: 30 Walks in the New Forest National Park |year=2012 |publisher=Cicerone Press Limited |isbn=9781849657075 |page=195}}{{cite web|url=http://www.newforestnpa.gov.uk/about-us/links/national-parks/diamonds-in-the-landscape/60-anniversary-timeline?SQ_DESIGN_NAME=text_only&SQ_ACTION=set_design_name |archive-url=http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110908220247/http://www.newforestnpa.gov.uk/about-us/links/national-parks/diamonds-in-the-landscape/60-anniversary-timeline?SQ_DESIGN_NAME=text_only&SQ_ACTION=set_design_name |url-status=dead |archive-date=8 September 2011 |title=60 years in the New Forest |publisher=New Forest National Park Authority |access-date=10 January 2013 }}

The river has two main tributaries, the Beaulieu Abbey Stream to the left and the Hatchet Stream to the right. In addition there are a series of artificial lakes near the mouth of the river, known as the Black Lagoons.

The Environment Agency measures the water quality of the river systems in England. Each is given an overall ecological status, which may be one of five levels: high, good, moderate, poor and bad. There are several components that are used to determine this, including biological status, which looks at the quantity and varieties of invertebrates, angiosperms and fish. Chemical status, which compares the concentrations of various chemicals against known safe concentrations, is rated good or fail.{{cite web |url=http://environment.data.gov.uk/catchment-planning/help/glossary |website=Catchment Data Explorer |title=Glossary (see Biological quality element; Chemical status; and Ecological status) |publisher=Environment Agency |date=17 February 2016}} 30px Text was copied from this source, which is available under an [http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ Open Government Licence v3.0]. © Crown copyright.

The water quality of the Beaulieu River was as follows in 2019:

The river was used as a backdrop for some scenes of the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons – the tree-lined waters were used to portray the 16th century River Thames.Gene Brown (1984) The New York Times Encyclopedia of Film: 1964-1968, {{ISBN|0812910532}}

Image:Fallen tree bridging beaulieu river.jpg|The infant river upstream from Dunces Arch

Image:Beaulieu river under railway arch.jpg|The river passes beneath the railway, north of Fulliford Passage

Image:Beaulieu river upstream of pottern ford.jpg|Bend in the river near Pottern Ford

Image:Alder trees beaulieu river fawley ford.jpg|Alder trees in the river north of Fawley Ford

Image:Beaulieu_river_mill_dam.jpg|The Mill Dam at Beaulieu

Image:Beaulieu_river_tidal_limit.jpg|The upper tidal limit of the river

Image:Beaulieu river moored boat.jpg|The river between Beaulieu and Bucklers Hard

Image:Bucklers Hard (1).JPG|The river at Bucklers Hard

Image:Yacht entering the beaulieu river.jpg|A yacht entering the river from the Solent

Image:The Millennium Light, Lepe, Hampshire - geograph.org.uk - 16977.jpg|Millennium Lighthouse at the mouth of the river

{{Reflist}}

{{Commons category|Beaulieu River}}

• [http://www.soton.ac.uk/~imw/Beaulieu-River-Estuary.htm Geology of the Beaulieu River Estuary by Ian West and Yining Chen]

{{Hydrology of Hampshire}}

{{coord|50|46|N|1|24|W|display=title|region:GB_type:river_source:GNS-enwiki}}

{{authority control}}

Category:New Forest

Beaulieu, River

Category:Alder carrs