River Ash, Middlesex

River Ash
River
Reach with wider banks, reeds and woodland close to Shepperton Studios
Country	United Kingdom
Region	England
City	Shepperton,Coordinates: 51°24′25″N 0°28′08″W / 51.407°N 0.469°W / 51.407; -0.469 Ashford, Staines-upon-Thames
Source	River Colne
- location	Staines-upon-Thames, Spelthorne, England, United Kingdom
Mouth	River Thames
- location	Lower Sunbury, Spelthorne, England, United Kingdom
Length	10 km (6 mi)

The River Ash is a small, shallow river in Surrey, England and its course of 10 km or 6 miles is just outside Greater London. Work has been carried out to straighten, sluice control, dredge and hem in sections over centuries. It flows as one of the seven present distributaries of the River Colne from just south of Staines Moor by the M25 motorway eastwards through the rest of the borough of Spelthorne before meeting the River Thames. It is not navigable to craft and is rich in plant and insects, particularly reeds and butterflies.

The river is a distributary of the River Colne forming the traditional boundary of Staines-upon-Thames first with Stanwell then with Ashford. It then from eastward turns southward and forms the boundary of Littleton (specifically the Queen Mary Reservoir followed by Shepperton Studios) on its east then north bank. On the other bank is Laleham where it turns eastward for the rest of its course - however for almost 1 mile (1.6 km) the south bank becomes Shepperton Green which is developed right up to the urban/suburban re-centred and retracted village of Littleton on the north bank. The large Sunbury Golf Course in Upper Halliford, then a rural Green Belt part of Sunbury-on-Thames proper replace its north bank. In the far east of Shepperton it joins the River Thames, flowing gently into the Creek, (a secondary weirstream of the Thames) facing a long residential island named Wheatley's Ait. It is privately owned and forms a feature in parks, farms and end of gardens. The five urban centres in the borough are a minimum of 500m from the river and three parks make use of the river for walks, the longest of which is in Fordbridge Park, Ashford. Being otherwise private, even experienced canoeists do not travel the river/stream given its reedier sections, short barrages and upper culverts.