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The Stour is a river in Worcestershire, Staffordshire and West Midlands, England. Above Stourbridge, the river formed the boundary between the two ancient English counties of Staffordshire and Worcestershire. The Stour is a tributary of the River Severn, and its length is about twenty-five miles.

The river rises in the north of Worcestershire in the Clent Hills, near St Kenelm's Church. It flows north into the adjacent West Midlands at Halesowen. It then flows westwards through Cradley Heath and Stourbridge. It is joined by the Smestow Brook at Prestwood before it winds around southwards to Kinver, and then flows back into Worcestershire. It then passes through Wolverley, Kidderminster and Wilden to join the River Severn at Stourport.

Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal runs beside the Stour as far as Prestwood and then follows the Smestow Brook. From Stourton Junction (near Prestwood), the Stourbridge Canal led to Stourbridge, while branches led towards collieries near Brierley Hill and linked to the Dudley Canal. These were all built in the late 18th century.

A century earlier, in the 1660s and 1670s, Andrew Yarranton attempted to make the river Stour itself navigable along much of its course. But these efforts were finally abandoned around 1680, when funds were exhausted. It is doubtful whether it would have been a profitable enterprise, had it succeeded.

At Wilden a short section of the Stour, of about a mile, was successfully made navigable but because of all the bends it is recorded that it was not easy to navigate. There was a lock at Pratt's Wharf (miss-named Platt's Wharf by the Ordnance Survey) connecting the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal with the river. This enabled canal barges to use the River Stour to deliver timber to a steam saw-mill in Wilden. Later it was used to transport coal and iron to the Wilden Works. The wharf was built by Isaac Pratt from Henwick, Worcester in 1835. He is described as a businessman and a merchant. There were two houses at Pratt's Wharf, one occupied by a lock keeper and the other by a clerk. The link was closed c1950.^[1]

Mills on the river Stour were important in the early industrial development of the area. They included fulling mills for cloth industries of Kinver, Worcester and Kidderminster, and from the 17th century iron forges and slitting mills, which cut bars of iron into rods for the production of nails.

The Stour was once a trout stream, but became severely polluted with chemicals that were released into it by industries along its banks, particularly acid from the holloware industry of Lye. In the final decades of the 20th century, this pollution ceased, and the river was cleaned up. Nowadays, wildlife is making a comeback in the Stour with Kingfishers and Grey Heron present, as well as recent reports of Atlantic Salmon and Brown Trout beginning to recolonise.

1. ^ Stourport-on-Severn Civic Society. Newsletter No 41. June 2005.

• In Search of the Stour

• Rivers of the United Kingdom

	River Severn, UK	edit
Counties: Montgomeryshire | Shropshire | Worcestershire | Gloucestershire | Monmouthshire | Bristol | Somerset | Flows into: Bristol Channel Towns: Llanidloes | Newtown | Welshpool | Shrewsbury | Ironbridge | Bridgnorth | Bewdley Stourport | Worcester | Tewkesbury | Gloucester | Berkeley | Chepstow | Bristol Major tributaries: Rea Brook | River Perry | River Tern | River Vyrnwy | River Stour | River Teme | Upper Avon | Lower Avon | River Wye Linked canals: Staffordshire and Worcestershire | Birmingham and Worcester | Droitwich Herefordshire and Gloucestershire | Thames and Severn | Coalport | Gloucester and Sharpness Major crossings: Welsh Bridge | English Bridge | The Iron Bridge | Severn Bridge | Severn Tunnel | Second Severn Crossing
Longest UK rivers: 1. Severn 2. Thames 3. Trent 4. Great Ouse 5. Wye 6. Tay 7. Spey 8. Nene 9. Clyde 10. Tweed 11. Eden 12. Dee