River Hamps

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The valley of the River Hamps, showing the Manifold Way which today follows the line of the old railway.

The River Hamps is a tributary of the River Manifold in the Staffordshire Peak District. It rises on the high moorland (grid reference SK033598), on the south side of Merryton Low, east of Upper Hulme; flows south through Onecote, and Winkhill; it then flows east, to Waterhouses then finally north, to meet the Manifold under Beeston Tor. The woodlands of this last stretch are part of the National Trust's South Peak Estate.

From Waterhouses to the River Manifold the valley carries the track of the former Leek and Manifold Valley Light Railway, now part of the Manifold Way, an 8 mile walk- and cycle-path.

In the 1960/70s there were controversial proposals to build a major new reservoir just north of Winkhill, inside the National Park. The reservoir would have been broad and relatively shallow. However in the end these proposals were dropped in favour of the reservoir at Carsington Water.

Its name came from an early form Middle English Hanespe, from the British *samo-sispā meaning "summer dry", i.e. "dry in summer". (See Kenneth Jackson (1953), Language and History in Early Britain, p518.)