The River Lark is a river in England that crosses the border between Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. It is a tributary of the River Great Ouse, and was extended when that river was re-routed as part of drainage improvements. It is thought to have been used for navigation since Roman times, and improvements were made in 1638 and in the early 1700s, when locks and staunches were built. The upper terminus was on the northern edge of Bury St Edmunds, but a new dock was opened near the railway station after the Eastern Union Railway opened its line in 1846.
The navigation was officially abandoned in 1888, but despite this, commercial use of the river continued until 1928. Following acquisition by the Great Ouse Catchment Board, locks at Barton Mills and Icklingham were rebuilt in the 1960s, but were isolated when the A11 road bridge was lowered soon afterwards. It now has one operational lock at Isleham, and can be navigated to Jude's Ferry.
Read more about River Lark: Course, Management, Navigation, Points of Interest, Bibliography
Famous quotes containing the words river and/or lark:
“This ferry was as busy as a beaver dam, and all the world seemed anxious to get across the Merrimack River at this particular point, waiting to get set over,—children with their two cents done up in paper, jail-birds broke lose and constable with warrant, travelers from distant lands to distant lands, men and women to whom the Merrimack River was a bar.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The lark sitting upon his earthy bed, just as the morn
Appears, listens silent, then springing from the waving Corn-field,
loud
He leads the Choir of Day—”
—William Blake (1757–1827)