The River Kennet flows into the River Thames at central Reading, Berkshire, completing a journey that begins in the chalk downlands of Wiltshire. From its sources near Silbury Hill and the villages of Uffcott and Broad Hinton north of Avebury, the Kennet passes through Marlborough, Hungerford and Newbury before reaching Reading, where it joins the Thames on the reach above Sonning Lock. Most of its course runs through the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the stretch from west of Marlborough down to Woolhampton covers 111.1 hectares (275 acres) designated as a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest, largely because of rare plants and animals found only in chalk-fed watercourses.
The River in Reading
For six miles west of Reading town centre, the Kennet is barraged to maintain water levels, producing a semi-natural secondary channel known as the Holy Brook. This long leat once powered the mills of Reading Abbey, and the first navigable mile of the river – from Kennet Mouth to the High Bridge – has been open to river traffic since at least the 13th century. That stretch, which includes Blake’s Lock, is now administered by the Environment Agency as though it were part of the Thames itself. At Kennet Mouth, the Horseshoe Bridge – a timber-clad iron-truss structure built in 1891 – was originally constructed so that horses towing barges along the Thames could cross the Kennet without difficulty.
Navigation and Wider Connections
The lower reaches of the Kennet form part of the Kennet Navigation, which, together with the Avon Navigation, the Kennet and Avon Canal and the Thames, links Bristol and London by water. Several tributaries join along the way: the Og at Marlborough, the Dun at Hungerford, and further downstream the River Lambourn, Enborne and Foudry Brook. The river’s name traces back to the Roman settlement of Cunetio in the upper valley, now the village of Mildenhall in Wiltshire. Scholars consider the name Celtic rather than Latin, with the stem “cun-” meaning “hound” – related to the modern Welsh words for dog. The former Kennet District of Wiltshire also took its name from the river during the period when Wiltshire had second-tier local authorities.