River Ver

The Ver is a river in Hertfordshire, England. The river begins in the grounds of Lynch Lodge, Kensworth Lynch on west side of the A5 trunk road and stays on the west side for some half mile or so then crosses through a pipe into the grounds of Markyate Cell, exits the grounds and recrosses the A5 once again piped, through Markyate, exits above ground at the southern end of Markyate and on through Flamstead, Redbourn, St Albans and Park Street, and joins the River Colne at Bricket Wood.

The Romans built the city of Verulamium alongside it at a time when it was navigable, expressing their preference for building in valleys rather than on hills.

The Ver is a chalk stream, which is partly a seasonal winterbourne north of Redbourn. However, many of its natural features have been compromised as a result of being canalised during the construction of the artificial lakes at Verulamium Park in St Albans in the 1930s (following the archaeological excavations of Verulamium by Sir Mortimer Wheeler and his wife Tessa Wheeler). During the 1960s and 1970s it suffered serious problems as a result of water extraction upstream. Although these abated temporarily after the closure of one of the pumping stations, as of 2005^[update] the upstream part of the river is drying up completely during the summer, and the rest of the river may suffer the same fate within a few years (compare the current situation with the "great flow of water" that was reported to exist in 1885, with a depth of 12 feet at Dolittle Mill on the Redbourn Road [1]). In 2004 a proposal for remedial work was being developed for the St Albans lakes.

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