Cruising Down the River...

Today we will look at some of the many rivers found in England.  Despite being just a relatively small island, there is an incredible number of rivers and streams found around Great Britain.  While not on the same scale as many in North America, or even Europe, English rivers have long played an important role in the life of the locals.  This is particularly noticeable when you look at the amount of "port" and "mouth" towns dotted around the coast.

The longest river entirely in England is the River Thames, which - as most people know - flows through London.  The source of the Thames (and therefore, the actual length!) has long been disputed, but it is somewhere between 215 and 240 miles in length.  On its way to the North Sea, the river flows through Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, and Greater London, before separating the counties of Essex and Kent.

At 185 miles in length, the River Trent is the second longest river entirely in England.  Rising in Staffordshire, it makes its way through the English Midlands before joining the Ouse, forming the Humber Estuary.  Most famously, the river flows through the major towns of Stoke-on-Trent and Nottingham (the Nottinghamshire County Cricket Ground is called Trent Bridge).

River Trent Cygnets by Diego Sideburns is licensed under CC BY NC ND 2.0

The third longest is the River Ouse (pronounced "Ooze").  Now, this is where it can get confusing, because there are no fewer than FOUR rivers in England called the Ouse!

This one, meandering through Northants, Bucks, Beds, Cambs, and Norfolk, is known as the Great Ouse.  Then there is the Little Ouse, which is a tributary of the Great Ouse.  There is a River Ouse in Yorkshire, and yet another down in Sussex.

Other English rivers measuring 70 miles or longer are the Yorkshire River Ouse (a stretch of which is called the Ure), the Nene, the Avon (again, there is more than one River Avon!), the Eden, the Witham, the Ribble, the Bristol Avon (see what I mean?), the Tyne, the Derwent, the Aire, the Tess, the Medway, the Mersey, and the Don.

River Aire by Helena is licensed under CC BY SA 2.0

I mentioned the town suffix of "-mouth" which is very common, and in the county of Devon alone, there are 53 rivers, including these with associated ports: Axe (Axmouth), Dart (Dartmouth), Exe (Exmouth), Plym (Plymouth), Sid (Sidmouth), and Teign (Teignmouth).

Probably the strangest name of all Devon waterways is the O Brook, a tributary of the West Dart on Dartmoor.  The name is derived from the earlier name of "Ocbroke" meaning "Oak Brook".  There are also three streams in Devon called the Walla Brook!