The River Piddle or Trent or North River is a small rural Dorset river which rises in the Dorset Downs and flows into Poole Harbour near Wareham.
Etymology
The river's name has Germanic origins and has had various spellings over the years. In AD 966 it was called the 'Pidelen', and on the church tower at Piddletrenthide—the first village to which it gives its name—it is spelled 'Pydel'. which has the name 'Puddletown'.
Course and characteristics
In its upper reaches, the Piddle is a chalk stream flowing south through a steep valley cut into the dip slope of the downland, which is dominated by an agricultural landscape of calcareous grassland pasture and arable fields. It rises above the church in Alton Pancras, which was originally named Awultune, a Saxon name meaning the village at the source of a river.
At Puddletown, south of the source, the chalk dips below clay and alluvial sand and gravel geology with a flatter landscape of water-meadows.
See also
- Rivers of the United Kingdom
- Piddle Brook
Notes
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