Wishing everyone in the NBY community a joyful Festival of Colours — a time for renewal, connection, and celebrating the vibrant rivers and communities in the Chilterns.
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@chilternsnl.bsky.social
@heritagefunduk.bsky.social
Nine of the three hundred chalk streams in the world are here in the Chilterns. Do you have a chalk stream local to you?
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@chilternsnl.bsky.social
@heritagefunduk.bsky.social
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#chalkstreams
#engagement
Attention! Our community survey closes in just over one week! 📢📢
Thank you to those who have already helped shape our chalk stream programme.
Add your voice to the story by following the link in our bio, and be in with a chance of winning a One4All voucher ✨️🪿
Ramadan Mubarak to all our Chilterns community who are observing this holy month. Wishing you a peaceful Ramadan filled with reflection, generosity and hope ✨️ 🏞
@heritagefunduk.bsky.social
@chilternsnl.bsky.social
👀 something ex-stream-ly hot this way comes 🐟🌊
Keep your eyes peeled on NBY for a big announcement...
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@heritagefunduk.bsky.social
@chilternsnl.bsky.social
#chalkstreams
#engagement
Have you ever wondered where chalk streams really come from? 💧
Beneath our feet sits a chalk aquifer - a huge natural sponge made of porous chalk rock. Rain slowly soaks into it, gets filtered and stored, and seeps back out through springs to feed our chalk streams 🏞🐟
Rivers slowly, surely, shape our landscape. Spring-fed rivers have an ethereal nature. “There is a mystery about rivers that draws us to them”, writes Olivia Laing, 2023, “for they rise from hidden places, and travel by routes that are not always tomorrow, where they might be today.”
What's the most boring event you ever attended? Last Saturday, @hillfortian.bsky.social led a brilliant ✨️soil boring✨️ session alongside @the-wildlifetrusts.bsky.social Youth Rangers at @naturalengland.bsky.social Hexton. We await the lab results! Thank you for joining our thoroughly boring day! 🤨😊
Exciting day working with the @notbourneyesterday.bsky.social team and @naturalengland.bsky.social at Hexton Estate. The @wildlifebcn.org Youth Rangers came out to help take samples to see if we can get some ancient pollen.
Yes, I told them today would be a truly boring exercise 😜
What stories life beneath our feet? 🤔
NBY will be soil coring at chalk springs, taking slender samples to read the earth's hidden history. By analysing layers of soil and tiny traces of life, we can illustrate deep time. Without a time machine, we must look to the earth, and core! 🌱
Hope springs eternal for NBY if you fill out our survey, linked in bio 🤭🌱
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@heritagefunduk.bsky.social
@chilternsnl.bsky.social
We are shaped by water.
Our minds and hearts are made mostly of it.
By weight, the human body is about 60% water.
Our bones hold water within them, our skin is formed by it.
Rivers move through us as surely as they move through the land.
@chilternsnl.bsky.social
@heritagefunduk.bsky.social
Our series of NBY interviews continues... this time with none other than our very own Fran! 👋🙋♀️
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Have five minutes to help us fill out our Development survey? We would be most grateful - linked in our bio.
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@chilternsnl.bsky.social
@heritagefunduk.bsky.social
Group of young people walking along a grass pathway with a river flowing to one side, and shrubbery and wildflowers on the other, under blue skies.
Could you help NBY? We are seeking an experienced Proofreader and Editor to review, edit and refine our Development bid 🐟✍️
❗️Closing date: Monday 26 January 2026. ❗️
Send a proposal to fcrowther@chilterns.org.uk by 26 January 2026. Full application pack on our website, linked on bio. Thank you!
What do chalk streams mean to you? What do you love, care or worry about - and how would you like to get involved?
Take our short survey - link in bio - and help us shape the future of these rare rivers. Thank you for your help!
@chilternsnl.bsky.social
@heritagefunduk.bsky.social
As snow falls across the chilterns, and melts away, it seeps slowly through the chalk, filling the aquifer, eventually feeding our chalk streams. A hidden journey beneath our feet, replenishing our rivers 🌨❄️
@chilternsnl.bsky.social
@heritagefunduk.bsky.social
A new year begins, and beneath our feet, the chalk is already at work, preparing the return of the winterbournes. As the year turns, we're drawn once more into the rhythm of the seasons - at Not Bourne Yesterday, we're looking ahead to another year of reconnecting with these precious rivers.
Species like trout and bullhead follow seasonal rhythms shaping rivers and nearby communities. These journeys have been modified and blocked over time. NBY seeks to remove these barriers, reconnecting landscapes that have been divided for generations. Chalk streams remind us of life's constant flow.
Why do you think chalk streams are important? Well, here is NBY volunteer, Tim, to tell us what he thinks. This is our second volunteer interview - what stories do you have to tell about chalk streams? Reach out to NBY to add your voice to the story! Thank you to Tim for his time and words! 🐛🐞🐟
Chalk streams are a sacred and social force, spanning millennia. From prehistoric Bronze Age artefacts placed in their waters, to the construction of Roman temples at springs, to modern ritual depositions of figures of religious significance in chalk streams - these waters contain so many stories.
We're live streaming!! 🏞 🐟Our wonderful volunteer, Pablo joined us at the Ewelme Brooke, one of the nine Chilterns chalk streams. Why do you think chalk streams are important? Thank you to Pablo for his time, and stay tuned for more volunteer interviews! 🐞🦟🕷🐜🐛
Rivers remind us that all life depends on shared resources, and how small acts of care ripple outwards. Standing together at the banks, we join a lineage of communities who have found meaning in these waters. In caring for our streams, we are honouring both the past, and what flows ahead.
For thousands of years, people journeyed to the Chilterns chalk streams, seeking refreshment and refuge. Chalk springs are holy places - and the rivers they feed were once worshipped as Gods. Today, when we gather at rivers, we converge with a truly ancient history.
Over centuries, rivers have carved valleys and quietly redrawn the land beneath us. Their currents fed mills and factories, helping to spark industries that transformed the UK. And alongside their banks, people have traded, gathered, worshipped, and told stories; NBY seeks to spotlight some of these
Rivers have been written into stories since the earliest records. It is Mole's constant companion in Grahame's Wind in the Willows. Tarka the Otter meets the River as a wilder force, sculpting the landscape. Folklore is filled with tales of rivers, and river folk - we are part of a deep history!
We were delighted to host @jamesaldridgeart.bsky.social on the River Wye and Ewelme Brooke! We discussed the importance of art in nature connection. At the Ewelme watercress beds, we explored the historic role of chalk streams in local industries. Watch this space... 🏞
@heritagefunduk.bsky.social
In ‘Is a River Alive’ Robert MacFarlane invites us to consider rivers as living beings with agency - not inate geographic features. Not Bourne Yesterday celebrated the River Wye for World Rivers Day, as more than a waterway, but as a site of stories and culture.
River with a video camera and tripod
This morning's office...doing a bit on a new short film with award winning filmmaker Nicola Schafer for @notbourneyesterday.bsky.social
Talking about archaeology in a chalk stream - nothing better on a crisp sunny November morning!
Watch this space for early 2026 reveal!
Haven't filled out Not Bourne Yesterday's survey yet? Don't worry! We are extending the closing date to Feb 28th, 2026. Add your voice to the Chilterns chalk streams story, and help us develop our community engagement programme. We are grateful for every entry!
A child and an adult walk through a shallow chalk stream holding a net, surrounded by lush greenery and overhanging branches.
Rivers epitomise our memories, culture, habits and ways of being. They connect us to our landscape. We celebrated our extraordinary chalk stream, the Wye, in urban High Wycombe this World Rivers Day - a river that means so much, to so many, for thousands of years.
@heritagefunduk.bsky.social
