Talk:List of rivers of England and Wales

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[edit] Defining coastlines

Can we get other coast lines defined by reference to headland points, as is now the case for the Pentland Firth coastline? Laurel Bush 12:06, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC).

How about the following proposal:
In England, flowing into the English Channel From Lizard Point to Foreness Point

In England, flowing into the North Sea - Thames and Medway From Foreness point to Shoebury Ness

In England, flowing into the North Sea - North of the Thames Estuary From Shoebury Ness to St Abbs Head

In Scotland, flowing into the North Sea From St Abbs Head to Duncansby Head

In Scotland, flowing into the Pentland Firth From (Duncansby Head to Holborn Head)

In Scotland, flowing into the Atlantic Ocean Holborn Head to Mull of Kintyre

In Scotland, flowing into the Firth of Clyde From Mull of Kintyre to Mull of Galloway

In Scotland, flowing into the Irish Sea Mull of Galloway to Gretna

In England, flowing into the Irish Sea Gretna to Hoylake

In Wales, flowing into the Irish Sea Hoylake to St. Govan's Head

In Wales, flowing into the Bristol Channel St. Govan's Head to M48 Bridge

In England, flowing into the Bristol Channel M48 Bridge to Lizard Point

Isle of Wight

In addition the following island groups (to be inserted in correct geographical positions)

The Orkney and Shetland Islands
The Outer Hebrides
The Inner Hebrides and Skye
Arran and the Cumbrae Islands
The Isle of Anglesey
The Scilly Isles

Excluded by definition are:

The Channel Isles
The Isle of Man

Velela 23:14, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Northern Ireland

Northern Irish rivers were already listed in a more complete and detailed list on the Rivers of Ireland article, which deals with the whole of the island of Ireland. I know Northern Ireland is in the UK, but I feel it makes more geographical sense to keep the list on the Ireland page, otherwise we'd have two seperate pages for each river that crossed the border from Northern Ireland into the Republic of Ireland. Obviously a river cannot flow from Northern Ireland into another UK country so in this case perhaps UK should be seen in geographical rather than political terms? Grunners 14:49, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Welsh Rivers

The names generally given here are english equivalents of valid Welsh (i.e. local) names with the Welsh name given in parenthesis. As an Englishman who has been working with rivers in Wales for more than 30 years this both sounds and feels wrong. An appropriate standard would seem to be the Ordnance Survey representation of River Names as given on the 1: 25000 series maps. It is of course still possible to wikilink to the English name (where one exists) given in parenthesis. The new names that I have added (i.e. a number of Anglesey Rivers) are now represented with their accepted name first and english equivalent second

Velela 21:53, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Speaking of Welsh rivers by any spelling, where's the Tawe? :) I would shove it in between the Llougher and the Nedd (and how is that for a fine mish-mash of English and Welsh, whoops) only the Lliw and the Llan have confused me.
Also, is there a consensus on Welsh and English river names yet? (I like Velela's approach.) --Telsa 14:08, 30 May 2005 (UTC)


Oops....! R. Tawe now included with tribs ( as an ex resident of Sketty, I should have known better!) Velela 16:13, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Organize and counter-clockwise

Please see Wikipedia:How_to_copyedit; Note that the English form of Wikipedia has no preference for American, British or other forms of English so long as this is consistent for the whole page. There is no inconsistency within the article and the previous usage would be the standard usage in the subject area of this article; there is therefore no reason to correct the spelling to North American norms. -- Chris j wood 22:14, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] River Colne, Hertfordshire

I have restricted the red link 'tributaries' of this river to those already mentioned in the River Colne, Hertfordshire article. And I may not have got them in the right order.

The article fudges the fact that the Colne Brook and the River Colne are distributaries and enter the Thames at different points.

Other names seen on maps are (in no particular order):

  • Shire Ditch - in the Master Atlas of Greater London (Geographers') just North of Uxbridge
  • Alder Bourne
  • Poyle Channel
  • Bigley Ditch
  • County Ditch - near the London Stone and shown on the wonderful 6 inch OS maps site at the edge of Church Lammas, Staines.

And of course there is the Grand Onion Canal in there as well to confuse matters. And with parallel channels having their own names altogether a difficult river to describe in the otherwise excellent and elegant format of this Rivers of Great Britain article. Even the article title River Colne, Hertfordshire is difficult - the river forms the County Boundary for a lot of its length.

RHaworth 07:49, 2005 Jan 20 (UTC)

This Environment Agency page will contain a map of the Colne Valley rivers (when it is finished!). -- RHaworth 19:34, 2005 Mar 14 (UTC)

[edit] Lacustrine !

I've just written articles on the River Brathay and the River Rothay. These rivers don't flow into the sea, but instead into Windermere (lake). Any suggestions as to how these might be categorised? There are other such rivers in the Lake District. Arcturus 23:10, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Since Windermere drains out to the sea as the River Leven (Cumbria), it is reasonable to assert that Windermere is simply a lacustrine enlargement of the Leven and I would therefore expect that the River Brathay and the River Rothay would be represented as tributaries of the Leven. I suspect that the same treatment would be appropriate for other lakes and lochs. Velela 00:47, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

And what if the lake's outlet to sea is not clearly titled as a river? Also: how should we regard watercourses (rivers?) which appear via Inglis to have acquired the title Water? Laurel Bush 17:00, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC).

Hmmmm ... Scotland again I guess ! Firstly I am not sure that the naming of a watercourse is an issue - if a watercourse is called xxxxx Water or Water of xxxx then I guess that is what it is called in Wikipedia. There is a similar issue in WAles where most rivers are called Afan zzzz both on the map and by local people. I have named these as River zzzz but this may be wrong except in Anglisised South Wales and Pembrokeshire where River zzz is commonly used. The more difficult issue is the case where a lake or a loch drains directly to the sea or through an unamed watercourse. How about something like xxxxx Water (via Loch yyyy} ?
Velela 17:47, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

.........I might try and get the word fluviatile into my next post...... Velela 09:53, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

So ....... is it "River Allan" or "Allan Water" or "River Allan (Allan Water)" or what? Laurel Bush 19:23, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC).


If Allan Water is what the map calls it and Allan Water what the local people call it then I personally don't see why it shouldn't be exactly that. I know that this cuts across the naming convention set out in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Rivers but that seems to assume that rivers have River in the name. This is, however, just my opinion. Velela 20:11, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] River Fyne

I suspect this river actually flows into the Atlantic north of the Mull Of Kintyre.

  • It flows into Loch Fyne and then immediately east of Kintyre. Warofdreams 12:10, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. And Loch Awe drains north and west via River Awe? Laurel Bush 15:49, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC).

[edit] River Welland

(North Sea, north of The Thames) Where is the River Bourne between the Chater and Eye Brook? If this is the Bourne Eau, it flows into the Lincolnshire Glen. TF1518

[edit] How odd!

I am amazed that all these lists have rivers and their tributaries going against the flow of the particular streams - surely, out of sheer logic, since the river increases in size as it moves from its source to its estuary - tributaries of a river should be given in the direction of flow and not against it??? Is there some peculiar WIKI logic that tells against that? Peter Shearan 13:45, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

  • The original idea was that the logic of continuing anticlockwise around the island applied to each stream - so tributaries should be listed from the mouth to the source on the side of the previous river in the list, then from source to mouth on the other bank. However, it seems there has been some confusion about this, so perhaps a clearly defined convention is needed. Warofdreams 12:09, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Trans-national rivers

The list doesn't seem to deal very well with rivers which cross national boundaries; especially their tributaries (for instance, English- rising tributaries of rivers rising in Wales). How might we fix this? Andy Mabbett 12:02, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cornwall

As part of an ongoing campaign to declare Cornwall entirely distinct from England, User:MacRusgail has changed "Rivers of England and Wales..." to read "Rivers of Cornwall, England, and Wales...". This usage is non-standard, and Wikipedia is not the place to establish neologisms. The constitutional status of Cornwall article cited is useful here, as it states "the Parliament and Government of the UK, as well as Cornwall County Council, treat Cornwall as an administrative and ceremonial county of England". Whether or not this is fair or desirable is not the issue here, where the intro does not need to go into detail on this subject. Warofdreams talk 12:48, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chew, Cam & Yeo Somerset

I'm not quite sure of the organisation & system underlying the listing but I think there is a problem (or two) in the section: In England, flowing into the Bristol Channel.

The list appears to show the Cam as a tributry of Midford Brook. I thought it was tributory of the River Chew unless there is more than one Cam in Somerset (which is quite possible). It doesn't include other tributories of the Chew ie Winford and Strode Brooks - how small a brook should this list be going down to?

The River Yeo link on the list goes to the Congresbury Yeo article showing it as a tributory of the River Parrett, although the article says it "empties into the Severn Estuary in Clevedon Bay". A search for the River Yeo leads to a disambiguation page which shows 7 Yeo's in Somerset, which don't appear to be on the list of rivers.

This would all take a better geographer/map reader than me to sort out - but I d think it needs sorting.Rod 21:13, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

The Congresbury Yeo meets the Severn estuary just south of Clevedon so is unconnected with the River Parrett and its tributaries. The Congresbury Yeo article is factually correct but the list of rivers is incorrect. I have tried to re-order this section of the list of Rivers to confirm to the general guidance set out in the header. Those more knowledgeable please feel free to change. Essentially I have taken the Severn above the M4 crossing to be treated as any other river and below the crossing to be treated as the Bristol Channel into which other rivers discharge. I believe the order of the tributaries of the upstream R. Severn is probably wrong and is certainly imcomplete. Velela 12:51, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

The list would benefit from checking; it is certainly not complete. As a very broad guide, when initially compiling it, I tried to include rivers with "River" in their name, and exclude smaller watercourses named "Brook", "Drain", etc, unless they are large or otherwise notable. However, it might be better to include all rivers sufficiently large to merit a Wikipedia article. Warofdreams talk 23:05, 31 May 2006 (UTC)


I agree in principle but even this has problems. I have tried to include rivers with an average daily flow of greater than 1 million gallons a day (an arbitary figure!) but even this excludes a number of Rivers and includes many Brooks, Drains etc. A difficult area for consistency. I would propbably err on the side of completness and include those named on the OS 1:50,000 maps. Velela 23:15, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] River Lin

Someone who knows where this flows should add this river to the list. It flows through Newtown Linford and forms Cropston Reservoir. Rmhermen 21:05, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

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