geo.wikisort.org - River

The River Ems is a much-sluiced, six miles (9.7 km) river of the far west of West Sussex which for its last one and a half miles (2.4 km) delimits eastern Hampshire, before flowing into large, coastal Chichester Harbour.

Source

Over the centuries various cartographers and chroniclers have suggested a variety of sources for the Ems.[1] According to research by David J. Rudkin the River Ems has its source about one and a half miles (2 km) east of Stoughton.[1]

From source to the sea

Along the county-limits part, of its west bank, is the old town portion of Emsworth that contains mainly pre-1900-built buildings. The Ems flows south west through Walderton as a broad-catchment winterbourne.[1] It runs past:

• the hamlet that includes well-preserved Lordington House
• Racton Monument which has nearby in Racton hamlet the church for Lordington
• A copse, Ractonpark Dell
• the village of Westbourne, has the westmost section of the Ems, in Sussex. Westbourne receives a year-round brook from the north and that descends under the railway at Emsworth (in Hampshire), becomes tidal, drains Brook Meadow to Peter and Slipper Mill Ponds from where it discharges into the sea. At lower tides it helps forms at the head of Emsworth Channel in the harbour; its last few metres enable access to Emworth Marina, the other former tidal mill pond.[2][3]

Etymology

It is sometimes thought that the town of Emsworth derives its name from that of the River Ems, this is not correct as before the 16th Century the stream was originally called the Bourne.[lower-alpha 1] The river was renamed by the 16th century chronicler Raphael Holinshed. Many of the towns and villages that the River Ems runs through or past still have Bourne as a suffix. e.g.:Westbourne.[5][6]

The Emille cometh first between Racton and Stansted, then down to Emilswort or Emmesworth, and so into the Ocean. Separating Sussex from Hampshire almost from the very head.

— Holinshed 1577, p. 21

Notes

References

Citations

• Holinshed, Raphael (1577). The firste volume of the chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande etc. Vol. 1. London: Imprinted for Iohn Hunne. OCLC 10105970.
• Lower, Mark Anthony (1864). Mark Antony Lower (ed.). "The Ems" (PDF). Sussex Archaeological Collections Relating to the History and Antiquities of the County. The Rivers of Sussex II. Lewes: SAC. XVI: 263–268.
• Ordnance Survey (1912). Sussex LX.6 (includes: Havant; Westbourne)Revised: 1910, Published: 1912 (Map). Ordnance Survey England & Wales County Series : Parish edition 1:2500.
• Reger, A J C (1967). A Short History of Emsworth and Warblington. Portsmouth: Pott and Horsey. p. 17.
• Rudkin, David J (1984). The River Ems and related Watercourses. Westbourne. OCLC 499701376.

---