Mystery
The War-Warning Stream
A dry valley stream said to run only when war is coming.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- A dry chalk valley on public bridleways
- Legend from
- By 1700
- Best time
- Only flows in very wet years
- Tone
- Eerie
The dry valley here hides the Bourne Gutter, a stream that, locals said, only ran when war was coming.
The Bourne Gutter is an intermittent chalk stream that runs only in some years, down Hockeridge Bottom and on to join the Bulbourne at Bourne End. Such capricious streams attract folklore, and this one was counted among Hertfordshire's woe-waters, whose rising foretold disaster: it was said to flow in times of war or rumours of war. Another local belief held that it returned every seven years. Naturalists' records disagree, showing it flowing in wet years such as 1879, 1883, 1897 and 1904. Its dry bed can be followed by public footpath from Bottom Farm to Bourne End.