Photograph (Many thanks to Major [Retd] Janet Brodie-Murphy) of the Old Mill, Knightsford Bridge. A nice photo showing the mill wheel and the weir. I'm not sure but there may be sluice gates to the right of the mill wheel, which I think gave some control as to when they wanted to run the wheel for milling.

I like the photo as I can never remember seeing this, the weir for sure had more or less collapsed when I used to fish there. I was very lucky as I was friends with Peter Walker and his family at Ankerdine farm, who owned the land here, although the fishing rights were owned by the Talbot Hotel for this stretch of river, which had lots of Grayling, Trout and Salmon. Also John Foot was the water Bailiff so I got to fish there with out a license. Mainly Chub and Eel were the fish I caught but in later years the Barbel moved in to the river and this is a great fish to catch as it gives a tremendous fight.

Recently in 2018 the Environment Agency began installing a bespoke rock ramp at Knightsford Bridge Weir. The weir is an existing gauging station and cannot be removed as it provides a suitable water depth for the new electronic gauging system that has been recently installed. As the weir needs to be retained, a bespoke rock ramp fish pass has been designed to suit the specific migratory requirements of twaite shad which predominantly migrate under low water flow conditions. The existing concrete weir will be adapted to enable the rock ramp to be installed, with the rocks extending a further 35 metres downstream at a shallow gradient and creating the necessary conditions for twaite shad to pass the weir. Environmental, bathymetric and hydraulic surveys have been undertaken to develop the design, with the final design modelled to assess any changes to the river levels.

 

 ©peh