River Churn

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The River Churn is one of the Cotswold rivers that feeds into the River Thames catchment. It arises at Seven Springs (on the A436) near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England and flows south across the Cotswold dip slope, passing through Cirencester and joining the River Thames near Cricklade in Wiltshire. Its length from source to confluence with the Thames is considerably greater than the Thames itself from source to the same confluence but, historically, the Churn is a regarded as a tributary. The length of the River Churn is approximately 25 kilometres.^[1]

The name Churn is ancient, certainly pre-Roman and probably has its origins in the Celtic language, spoken by the Dobunni tribe, who controlled the area before the Roman conquest in the 1st Century. The original name may have sounded similar to Korinn. It has been suggested that the origin of the word is associated with the ancient British Cornovii tribe.^[2]

Cognate names and name elements from the area are Cerney, Ciren and Corin as found in the villages of North Cerney, South Cerney, and Cerney Wick, modern Cirencester, and the Roman town name Corinium. All these places are on or close to the River Churn.

The Coln and the Thames both feed the waters of the Western component of the Cotswold Water Park, which is made up of redundant gravel beds and is situated between Cirencester and Cricklade.

Much of the catchment basin of the River Churn is known to have been an important Roman settlement area in the second to fourth centuries AD. Literature references in Ptolemy as well as architectural finds at Cirencester, Calcot Manor and other locations produce abundant evidence of not only settlement by also an advanced road system.^[3]

As of the year 2006 the national government is engaged in a planning sudy to analyse methods of mitigating future flooding associated with the River Churn.^[4]