Course
The general course of the Penk is a descent from the mid-Severn sandstone section of the Midlands Plateau to the Cheshire-Shropshire-Staffordshire plain. Along much of its length, the Penk is shadowed to within a few miles by the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal.
The Penk rises in the centre of the village of Perton, South Staffordshire, approximately three miles west-north-west of Wolverhampton. The Penk itself flows entirely within Staffordshire, skirting around the Wolverhampton suburbs of Tettenhall and Pendeford, although it is joined on its right by a number of streams from within Wolverhampton, as well, on the left, the Moat Brook, which drains Oaken, Codsall and Bilbrook. It flows through the village of Coven and is then joined by a major tributary, the Saredon Brook, which drains the area around Cheslyn Hay and Great Wyrley.
It then flows north to the market town of Penkridge, where it turns east and is joined by the Whiston Brook - a tributary which drains a substantial area, stretching out into Shropshire. Turning north again, it flows across the plain, past Acton Trussell and into a marshy area, where numerous drains have been constructed and brooks canalised to contain flooding. Passing on to Baswich on the outskirts of Stafford, it joins the River Sow, which itself soon empties into the River Trent - a major river which will empty ultimately via the Humber into the North Sea.
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