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Pen Leach Brook

A stream near Higher Folds, Wigan. No gauge of its own: what the river map and the banked data say about it.

Pen Leach Brook is a stream on Ordnance Survey’s river map near Higher Folds, Wigan, with about 960 m of mapped channel. On the map it flows into Bedford Brook, which flows on into Moss Brook (Black Brook), then Glaze Brook; beyond that the map has a gap, so where it goes next is not known.

Next gauge downstream

Little Woolden Hall on Glaze Brook, about 7.7 km along the river below where Pen Leach Brook ends on the map.

0.59 m Normal · falling 30 min ago

No gauge measures Pen Leach Brook itself. A gauge downstream shows water that has already passed it, mixed with everything else that has joined on the way, so it says nothing exact about this stream.

Storm overflows on Pen Leach Brook

3 storm overflows are placed on this stream on the river map. Each status is the water company’s own monitor.

Leigh SSO Not discharging
United Utilities · into Pen Leach Brook · 2025: 8 spills, 16 h
Queensway PS Not discharging
United Utilities · into Pen Leach Brook · 2025: 12 spills, 14 h
Stirling Close CSO 508na Not discharging
United Utilities · into Colling Lane Brook, Pen Leach · 2025: 13 spills, 74 h

A status says whether an overflow is discharging now, never how much or why. A monitor that is offline or has not reported is not “not discharging”. Sewage in Britain’s rivers →

Live status: © United Utilities storm overflow activity data, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Annual spill figures: Environment Agency Event Duration Monitoring return, © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right, Open Government Licence (OGL) v3.0.

Water-sampling points on Pen Leach Brook

1 Environment Agency sampling point is placed on this stream. These are dated samples taken by hand, not live readings, and FloodRadar does not grade them.

Penleach Brook above the confluence with Lilford Park Brook
No sample published 1 Oct 2023 – 30 Sep 2026

A sample is taken on a date; it says nothing about the water today. A sample below an overflow does not by itself show where anything in it came from.

Water samples: Environment Agency Water Quality Archive, © Environment Agency and/or database right 2026, Open Government Licence v3.0.

Places along it

From its source towards its mouth, the settlements within a kilometre of it on the map: Higher Folds, Marsland Green, Hooten Gardens.

On the map

The map needs JavaScript. Everything it shows is listed on this page.

The blue line is Pen Leach Brook; grey lines are other mapped watercourses. Lines from OS Open Rivers (edition 2026-04).

Bedford Brook, the stream it joins →WN7 2GF, a postcode page near where it ends on the map (about 100 m away) →All rivers with gauges →

What this page can and cannot tell you

Its line, its name and where it flows come from Ordnance Survey’s river map (OS Open Rivers, edition 2026-04), which leaves out many small streams, ditches and culverts. “Flows into” is the map’s word: a channel that is not on the map is not shown here, which does not mean it is not there.
No gauge measures Pen Leach Brook itself, so its own level is not known here.
Storm overflows are listed only where the river map places them on this stream; an overflow it could not place is not counted.
Water samples are England’s only (the Environment Agency’s archive), placed where the map can place their sampling point.
Nothing on this page says whether any place floods. For an address, see its postcode page.

This uses Environment Agency flood and river level data from the real-time data API (Beta). Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0.