Is the river cleaner?

A lazy weekend for us... but the sun finally came out in the afternoon today so we decided on a little fresh air. Witton Park is especially familiar to me, having lived nearby for many years, and we followed a well walked route through the playing fields at Pleasington, then back along the riverside into the park proper and then along to the main cafe.

The river flowing through the park is the Darwen, a fairly short but fast flowing river rising in the hills above the town which gives it its name. By the time it reaches the park, it has been joined by the Blakewater, the blake 'burn' which gives Blackburn its name. Wikipedia suggests 'blake' means either 'black' or possibly'clear', so the name could either refer to pollution (the river was treated as a sewer over many centuries), or perhaps to an earlier time when the river was in better health.

Both the Blakewater and Darwen were heavily polluted up right into the seventies, as dyes and paint from nearby industry were often flushed into the river, but in recent years the pollution has ceased and a clean-up effort has even brought fish back to the river again.


We couldn't see any fish during our stroll, and although the industrial contamination is no more, more everyday pollution in the form of rubbish and litter is still around, and this is despite a 'litter trap' near the entrance to the park.