River Eden, Cumbria

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Eden (Cumbria)
Ituna (Roman name)
River
The Eden at Appleby
Name origin: Celtic eidheann, E.Ir. edenn 'ivy

Country	United Kingdom (England)

Tributaries
- left	Caldew, Petteril, Eamont
- right	Irthing


Source
- location	Mallerstang
Mouth
- location	Solway Firth

Length	145 km (90 mi)
Discharge	for Sheepmount, Carlisle
- average	51.82 m³/s (1,830 cu ft/s)
- max	1,500 m³/s (52,972 cu ft/s) maximum discharge in Jan 2005
Discharge elsewhere (average)
- Temple Sowerby	14.44 m³/s (510 cu ft/s)

The River Eden is an English river that flows through Cumbria on its way to the Solway Firth.

It rises in Black Fell Moss, in Mallerstang, on the high ground between High Seat, Yorkshire Dales and Hugh Seat. Here it forms the boundary between the counties of Cumbria and North Yorkshire. Two other great rivers arise in the same peat bogs here, within a kilometer of each other: the River Swale and River Ure.

It starts life as Red Gill Beck, then becomes Hell Gill Beck, before turning north and joining with Ais Gill Beck to become the River Eden. (Hell Gill Force, just before it meets Ais Gill Beck, is the highest waterfall along its journey to the sea).

The steep-sided dale of Mallerstang^[1] later opens out to become the Vale of Eden. The river flows through Kirkby Stephen and Appleby-in-Westmorland, and receives the water of many becks flowing off the Pennines to the east, and longer rivers from the Lakes off to the west, including the River Lyvennet, River Leith and River Eamont, which arrives via Ullswater and Penrith.

Continuing north, it passes close to the ancient stone circle known as Long Meg and Her Daughters and through the sparsely populated beef and dairy farming regions of the vale of Cumbria on the Solway Plain. After flowing through Wetheral it merges with the River Irthing from the east, followed by the River Petteril and River Caldew from the south, as it winds through Carlisle.

Its junction with the River Caldew in north Carlisle marks the point where Hadrian's Wall crosses the Eden, only five miles before both reach their end at the tidal flats. It enters the Solway Firth near the mouth of the River Esk after a total distance of 90 miles (145 km).

The river was known to the Romans as the Ituna.

Etymology: Celtic eidheann, E.Ir. edenn 'ivy'.