good morning everybody and welcome to another video today we're going to be
looking at this map and in particular that town those two rivers. That says
chard in Somerset. Yep we went there a couple of weeks ago
surely we're not going there again no but we go somewhere a little more local
which explains quite well why we want to talk about this map and why that town
and that Street in particular is a week for Street is extremely unique okay so
where are we going today I'll tell you I'm get there.
So here we are in Wiltshire. Breezy a little bit breezy near the top of the
hill when we will explain why we're near the top of the hill soon and this is a
good place as any to introduce what I want to talk about today which is river
basins
so the boring bit first what is a river basin probably pretty obvious right no
not really what my assumption is and research on River Basin from GCSE
geography is it's an area of land where the water collects and goes into a
specific River Basin a bit like a basin but it could be a tributary of a
particular River that's kind of obvious it works like a tree backwards okay so
okay what we can do a handy demonstration right so what we're gonna
need for this little demonstration are two things which I sneaked in
your backpack well in my bag yep I've snuck two things in your bag
okay cheese role? I'll have that oh thank you yeah keep going
nope I'll take that too okie dokie Oh
oh yes right okay so for the purposes of this not even GCSE level perhaps junior
school or maybe an infant school demonstration we have two cups a large
bottle of water so if a car comes in trouble okay so two cups of water right
so let's say for the purposes of this experiment example that there is a river
basin it's not because there's no water no river but the water will go
so if I if I pull this glass Cup
so let's assume this is a river basin it's not as such because there's no
obviously rivers only a small bit of land but for the purposes of this the
water I've just put down there is going to flow into what would be a river in
this instance it's very chalky it's going to soak through into the ground
and it's going to go possibly join onto what is the river borne the river
born then goes towards Salisbury and south and into the river avon and so we
were five rivers meet if however I could be bothered I'd walk to the top of this hill
up here
but I'd probably be trespassing and it's a big hill but let's assume we're on the
top of that hill and I'll get my glass of water I'm a cup of water and I chuck it
out over there that's going to go into a tributary of the river test just north
of us a fullerton just to the southwest of Andover
so essentially what we just looked at there is two river basins the
tributaries of the river basins and that is what I began thinking about a couple
of weeks ago when we visited a place called chard so now you establish the
point of a river basin what what is the point of this video what's it got to do
with...... did you get any of that I don't either?
so with the whole point of this video being about River Basins more so I
wanted to talk about it more so I wanted to talk about the line between the river
places and so if you go online you can see who loads of maps of rivers their
tributaries and you can you can get a rough idea of where the line between
each of those basins is and so what I mean is can you search for a map of
those lines between the basins the exact point the exact point where if you stand
somewhere and you pour a glass of water to your left it goes into one River or
tributary and the exact line if you pour it's your right hand side instead it
then goes to another River there must be somewhere someone that has mapped that
if not why not let's do it so with that point in mind and now you
know the whole video is about the the lines and there will be a technical
phrase for this the lines between the basins that takes us nicely back to
chard in Somerset.
and that is exactly where we find ourselves now here in chard. Now chard is
an interesting little town in Somerset with a population of around 13,000 a
town with a massive abundance of history especially considering its size so right
now you find us walking up FORE Street we
have just left behind Chards second railway station which has now been
replaced by the all-too-familiar Tesco's fore Street plays quite an important
part in the tale of chard and its unique Road but before we get to let's savor a
look at some of this impressing buildings seemingly in every direction
we turn. Anyway enough of that let's get back on topic and now would be a good
time to have a look at that map again yeah the wanting to star the video you
probably couldn't really see as we have a bit of a dodgy printer you will
however be able to note the two blue lines they represent water, actual water
that flows in a specific direction along a channel generally towards the see.
Lets call that,..... I don't know..... a river now back on Fore Street you'll notice that each
side of the road has a stream running down it we were here in the late winter
and there was a fair amount of water flowing down each side local folklore
suggests each of these streams diverts into a different River so the stream on
the north side goes into the river Isle and the stream on the south side of the
street goes into the river Axe the self now this doesn't seem too groundbreaking
until you realise that the river Ilse goes into the Bristol Channel and the
river axe goes into the English Channel so does that mean if I risk my life and
stand in the mid of the road sipping a glass of water to one side and tipping a
glass of water to the other side one will go to the British channel and
one would go to the English Channel well technically yes so the situation did
change some years ago possibly with the building of
of the canal when the axe was diverted into the isle
however above Hollyrood Street pictured here it still goes self into the Axe so
the assumption still remains that anything to the immediate west of
Hollyrood on Fore Street does indeed head south so as far as we're concerned the
local folklore does still hold true so now we ask the questions of you as we
suggested earlier in the video these lines must exist around every Basin so
there must be some more examples but perhaps on a street like this but plenty
more examples which might give an interesting topic do you know of any do
you know of any more significant examples if you do let us know in the
comments below hope you found this little video interesting and as fast as
is weeded will be back to explore in next week
you