Winterbourne

[charlotteeee]

what does it mean?

[Sylday]

"Bourne" is an old word for stream. Possibly places with the name Winterbourne have streams which flow particularly more strongly in winter than during the rest of the year.

[New Forester]

Winterbournes often occur in valleys which are on porous rock, such as chalk or sandstone. They are streams which usually run only in winter. In these places, only when the rainfall is high and evaporation low does the water table rise above the floor of the valley, allowing the stream to flow over saturated rock. At other times, rainfall sinks into the ground and seeps slowy through the rock, or runs through underground channels. For example there are lots of winterbournes in Dorset (near here), on the Hants Downs, round Canterbury in Kent, etc etc. Usually it's the upper reaches of the stream which are winterbournes, with more permanent rivers downstream -- indeed, most rivers are longer in wet weather. There are a few UK rivers whose lower stretches dry up in some summers, where they run over porous rock, but the upper stretches are permanent. Examples are the Mole in Surrey, and the Darent in W Kent. In each case the main catchment is on Wealden clays and sands, but the river flows N to the Thames over the North Downs chalk, partly or wholly diving beneath the bed in dry weather (supposedly the origin of the name Mole).