The River Tillingbourne (also known as the Tilling Bourne) runs along the south side of the North Downs and joins the River Wey at Guildford. Its source is near Tilling Springs to the north of Leith Hill at and it runs through Friday Street, Abinger Hammer, Gomshall, Shere, Albury, Chilworth and Shalford. The source is a semi-natural uninhabited area. The catchment is situated on sandstone which has a low rate of weathering. The Tillingbourne is 18 km in length.
The Tillingbourne initially flows northward for 4 km down the northern slopes of Leith Hill over a series of weirs and cascades, before turning west to run for 14 km through Abinger Hammer and Chilworth towards the River Wey at Shalford. The river is classified as a subsequent stream, since its course is determined by the direction of the stratum of softer rock for the majority of its length.
The river has four principal tributaries: the Friday Street stream joins at Wootton House; the Holmbury St Mary stream joins at Abinger Hammer; the Sherbourne Brook drains the Silent Pool and Sherbourne Pond and the Law Brook joins near Postford.
The river used to power a number of gunpowder, paper and flour mills in the area. The gunpowder mill was at Chilworth. Present day users include a trout farm, watercress beds,a business growing reeds and is often studied by students from nearby field studies centres, such as Sayers Croft and Juniper Hall.
The river passes through the Albury estate at: Albury Park, Weston fishery, Vale End fishery and Powder Mills fishery. The rivers course has been diverted slightly here for the purpose of the estate.
The River Tillingbourne supports a healthy fish population of both wild brown trout and coarse fish. The Environment Agency has been working with local fishermen to improve the habitat for these fish by recreating a pool and riffle habitat and by cutting back overhanging vegetation. The river was championed by the Victorian landscapist Lewis Pinhorn Wood, who lived in Shere from 1884 to 1897, and painted extensively along its banks with scenes including The Silent Pool, Twilight (1888) and Evening on the Tillingbourne (1889).
I recommend accessing it from the north side next to the bridge, near the cache 'Wet feet'. You do not need to wade to find this cache, however if you come from the south side you will have to cross it (there are fallen trees).
The cache is a fairly large Tupperware which has a bit of swag and a logbook.
Please favourite it and leave feedback about it and possibly if you have any other ideas for a series of geocaches in the guildford area.
Please feel free to take photos of yourself with the cache
We really enjoy the anecdotes and experiences from visiting our caches so we'd rather not see simply 'TFTC' or :-)
As you are in the area you may want to visit some of my other caches in the Chantries and you can also visit some of the other caches in the 7 wonders of Guildford series
These are (or will be) the other caches in the 7 Wonders of Guildford series
- The Chantries
- Pewley Down
- St Martha's Hill
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- Stoke Park
- Riverside Park
- TBC Somewhere along the River Way (probably near Shalford)