The River Leam ( /ˈlɛm/ lem) is a river which flows through eastern and southern Warwickshire. It is a small river about 25–30 miles long. The town of Leamington Spa lies on, and is named after, the River Leam.
Its name came via Anglo-Saxon from Celtic leman or lemin = "having elm trees" or "marshy river". River Leame is given as an alternative spelling in Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary.[1]
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The River Leam springs near the village of Hellidon in Northamptonshire on the north side of a range of low ironstone hills which form the watershed between the systems feeding the River Thames and the River Severn. The Leam's source below Hellidon Hill is less than a mile from the source of the River Cherwell, a tributary of the Thames.
Two miles from its source, the River Leam passes under the A425 main road from Daventry to Southam. From here to the village of Braunston it marks the boundary between Northamptonshire and Warwickshire. At Braunston, the river is crossed by a substantial embankment carrying the Grand Union Canal over the river on an aqueduct.
West of Braunston, the River Leam opens into a broad flat valley and flows through open farmland passing the small village of Grandborough where there was once a water mill.
The river passes north of the hamlet of Kites Hardwick on the A426 road where there is a gauging station operated by Severn Trent Water. Water from the river is pumped into to a large storage reservoir named Draycote Water.
From here, the river valley becomes narrower past the villages of Leamington Hastings and Birdingbury. At Marton, the river is bridged by the busy A423 road – until the 1990s there were substantial floods here in wet weather until a new bridge was built to keep traffic well above river level, the medieval bridge remains alongside it. There were watermills at Eathorpe and Hunningham. After Hunningham, the river passes Offchurch, traditionally the home of King Offa, where the pedestrian footway is raised above road level as a counter to flooding.
After Offchurch, the River Leam enters the outskirts of Royal Leamington Spa beside the Grand Union Canal – in fact, the canal has followed the river at various points from Braunston.
Though Leamington the river is surrounded almost entirely by parks, after passing an open area of grass and woodland called Newbold Comyn, the river widens dramatically into Jephson Gardens, the main municipal park in Leamington Spa. The widening is due to a weir spanned by an ornate Victorian iron footbridge – the resulting water space is used for boating and canoeing in the summer at the Leam Boat Centre [1]. The river water is cleaner here than in many urban water spaces because the River Leam mostly flows through agricultural land and has no industry on its banks.
Passing the Georgian Royal Pump Rooms in the centre of Leamington Spa, the River Leam flows a further two miles until it joins the River Avon midway between Warwick and Leamington.
Several brooks are tributaries of the River Leam, including the Rains Brook which joins it near Kites Hardwick, the Warwickshire River Itchen which joins near Marton and Pingle Brook which joins near Cubbington.
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