Reviving a river

Good news stories about Britain's rivers are hard to find in 2023, but in the Lake District, heroic efforts are being made to restore life to lost streams. And the transformation of Goldrill Beck near Ullswater is the jewel in the crown.

- Tanya Jackson

It is a still, sunny spring day in Goldrill Beck, a meandering river in the Ullswater Valley in Cumbria's magnificent Lake District. Cradled by mountains, this Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) is slowly waking up after winter. Brown and white Herdwick sheep graze in a neighbouring paddock, while clumps of soft rushes poke up through the waterlogged grassland.

The unpolluted river trickles fast but shallow, leaving gravel deposits along every bend, 'redds' for critically endangered Atlantic salmon to lay their eggs, which will become nurseries for fry as they emerge. And like the baby salmon, this environment is in its infancy - at the start of a journey of transformation. At a time when the UK's rivers are at their most vulnerable, it's a sight for sore eyes.

Of course, you would expect a bucolic scene like this in the Lake District, one of the UK's most popular natural beauty spots. But it's surprisingly rare to see a river meandering along its natural course here - and just a year ago, this one didn't. In fact, the last time this river looked like this was three centuries ago, before the whole floodplain was straight-jacketed into a canal.

In the late 1700s, Goldrill Beck was canalised to free up upland for grazing. Running parallel to the A592, the water ran deep and fast and persistently gnawed away at the underside of the road over the years. Walking along the road, you can glimpse the former condition of the beck where a section of the canal still remains - the water hurtles through, too swiftly for wildlife or plants to inhabit, leaving only large boulders on the river bed. But this is not unusual in the Lake District.