River Trent
The Trent, the third-longest river in the United Kingdom, has its source in Staffordshire, on the southern edge of Biddulph Moor. It flows through and drains the North Midlands into the Humber Estuary. The river is known for dramatic flooding after storms and spring snowmelt, which in the past have often caused the river to change course.
The river passes through Stoke-on-Trent, Stone, Staffordshire, Rugeley, Burton-upon-Trent and Nottingham before joining the Yorkshire Ouse at Trent Falls to form the Humber Estuary, which empties into the North Sea between Kingston upon Hull in Yorkshire and Immingham in Lincolnshire. The wide Humber estuary has often been characterised as the boundary between the Midlands and Northern England.
Name
The name "Trent" is possibly from a Romano-British word meaning "strongly flooding". More specifically, the name may be a contraction of two Romano-British words, tros and hynt. This may indeed indicate a river that is prone to flooding. However, a more likely explanation may be that it was considered to be a river that could be crossed principally by means of fords, i.e. the river flowed over major road routes. This may explain the presence of the Romano-British element rid in various place names along the Trent, such as Hill Ridware, as well as the Old English‐derived ford. Another translation is given as "the trespasser", referring to the waters flooding over the land. According to Koch at the University of Wales, the name Trent derives from the Romano-British Trisantona, a Romano-British reflex of the combined elements *tri-sent-on-ā- ‘great thoroughfare’. A traditional but almost certainly wrong opinion is that of Izaak Walton, who states in The Compleat Angler that the Trent is "... so called from thirty kind of fishes that are found in it, or for that it receiveth thirty lesser rivers."Course
The Trent rises within the Staffordshire Moorlands district, near the village of Biddulph Moor, from a number of sources including the Trent Head Well. It is then joined by other small streams to form the Head of Trent, which flows south, to the only reservoir along its course at Knypersley Reservoir. Downstream of the reservoir it passes through Stoke-on-Trent and merges with the Lyme, Fowlea and other brooks that drain the six towns of the Staffordshire Potteries to become the River Trent. On the southern fringes of Stoke, it passes through the landscaped parkland of Trentham Gardens.The river then continues south through the market town of Stone, and after passing the village of Salt, it reaches Great Haywood, where it is spanned by the 16th-century Essex Bridge near Shugborough Hall. At this point the River Sow joins it from Stafford. The Trent now flows south-east past the town of Rugeley until it reaches Kings Bromley where it meets the Blithe. After the confluence with the Swarbourn, it passes Alrewas and reaches Wychnor, where it is crossed by the A38 road dual carriageway, which follows the route of the Roman Ryknild Street. The river turns north-east where it is joined by its largest tributary, the River Tame and immediately afterwards by the River Mease, creating a larger river that now flows through a broad floodplain.
The river continues north-east, passing the village of Walton-on-Trent until it reaches the large town of Burton-upon-Trent. The river in Burton is crossed by a number of bridges including the ornate 19th-century Ferry Bridge that links Stapenhill to the town. To the north-east of Burton the river is joined by the River Dove at Newton Solney and enters Derbyshire, before passing between the villages of Willington and Repton where it turns directly east to reach Swarkestone Bridge. Shortly afterwards, the river becomes the Derbyshire-Leicestershire border, passing the traditional crossing point of King's Mill, Castle Donington, Weston-on-Trent and Aston-on-Trent.
At Shardlow, where the Trent and Mersey Canal begins, the river also meets the Derwent at Derwent Mouth. After this confluence, the river turns north-east and is joined by the River Soar before reaching the outskirts of Nottingham, where it is joined by the River Erewash near the Attenborough nature reserve and enters Nottinghamshire. As it enters the city, it passes the suburbs of Beeston, Clifton and Wilford; where it is joined by the Leen. On reaching West Bridgford it flows beneath Trent Bridge near the cricket ground of the same name, and beside The City Ground, home of Nottingham Forest F.C., until it reaches Holme Sluices.
Downstream of Nottingham it passes Radcliffe-on-Trent, Stoke Bardolph and Burton Joyce before reaching Gunthorpe with its bridge, lock and weir. The river now flows north-east below the Toot and Trent Hills before reaching Hazelford Ferry, Fiskerton and Farndon. To the north of Farndon, beside the Staythorpe Power Station the river splits, with one arm passing Averham and Kelham, and the other arm, which is navigable, being joined by the Devon before passing through the market town of Newark-on-Trent and beneath the town's castle walls. The two arms recombine at Crankley Point beyond the town, where the river turns due north to pass North Muskham and Holme to reach Cromwell Weir, below which the Trent becomes tidal.
The now tidal river meanders across a wide floodplain, at the edge of which are located riverside villages such as Carlton and Sutton on Trent, Besthorpe and Girton. After passing the site of High Marnham power station, it becomes the approximate boundary between Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire and reaches the only toll bridge along its course at Dunham on Trent. Downstream of Dunham the river passes Church Laneham and reaches Torksey, where it meets the Foss Dyke navigation which connects the Trent to Lincoln and the River Witham. Further north at Littleborough is the site of the Roman town of Segelocum, where a Roman road once crossed the river.
It then reaches the town of Gainsborough with its own Trent Bridge. The river frontage in the town is lined with warehouses, that were once used when the town was an inland port, many of which have been renovated for modern use. Downstream of the town the villages are often named in pairs, representing the fact that they were once linked by a river ferry between the two settlements. These villages include West Stockwith and East Stockwith, Owston Ferry and East Ferry, and West Butterwick and East Butterwick. At West Stockwith the Trent is joined by the Chesterfield Canal and the River Idle and soon after enters Lincolnshire fully, passing to the west of Scunthorpe. The last bridge over the river is at Keadby where it is joined by both the Stainforth and Keadby Canal and the River Torne.
Downstream of Keadby the river progressively widens, passing Amcotts and Flixborough to reach Burton upon Stather and finally Trent Falls. At this point, between Alkborough and Faxfleet the river reaches the boundary with Yorkshire and joins the River Ouse to form the Humber which flows into the North Sea.
Migration of course in historic times
Unusually for an English river, the channel altered significantly during historic times, and has been described as being similar to the Mississippi in this respect, especially in its middle reaches, where there are numerous old meanders and cut-off loops. An abandoned channel at Repton is described on an old map as 'Old Trent Water', records show that this was once the main navigable route, with the river having switched to a more northerly course in the 18th century. Farther downstream at Hemington, archaeologists have found the remains of a medieval bridge across another abandoned channel. Researchers using aerial photographs and historical maps have identified many of these palaeochannel features, a well-documented example being the meander cutoff at Sawley. The river's propensity to change course is referred to in Shakespeare's play Henry IV, Part 1:Henry Hotspur's speech complaining about the river has been linked to the meanders near West Burton, however, given the wider context of the scene, in which conspirators propose to divide England into three after a revolt, it is thought that Hotspur's intentions were of a grander design, diverting the river east towards the Wash such that he would benefit from a much larger share of the divided Kingdom. Downstream of Burton upon Trent, the river increasingly trends northwards, cutting off a portion of Nottinghamshire and nearly all of Lincolnshire from his share, north of the Trent. The idea for this scene, may have been based on the disagreement regarding a mill weir near Shelford Manor, between local landowners Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and Sir Thomas Stanhope which culminated with a long diversion channel being dug to bypass the mill. This took place in 1593 so would have been a contemporary topic in the Shakespearean period.
Prehistory
During the Pleistocene epoch, the River Trent rose in the Welsh hills and flowed almost east from Nottingham through the present Vale of Belvoir to cut a gap through the limestone ridge at Ancaster and thence to the North Sea. At the end of the Wolstonian Stage a mass of stagnant ice left in the Vale of Belvoir caused the river to divert north along the old Lincoln river, through the Lincoln gap, along what is now the course of the Witham. During a following glaciation the ice held back vast areas of water – called Glacial Lake Humber – in the current lower Trent basin. When this retreated, the Trent adopted its current course into the Humber.Catchment
The Trent basin covers a large part of the Midlands, and includes the majority of the counties of Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and the West Midlands; but also includes parts of Lincolnshire, South Yorkshire, Warwickshire and Rutland. The catchment is located between the drainage basins of the Severn and its tributary the Avon to the south and west, the Weaver to the north-west, the tributaries of the Yorkshire Ouse to the North and the basins of the Welland, Witham and Ancholme to the east.A distinctive feature of the catchment is the marked variation in the topography and character of the landscape, which varies from the upland moorland headwaters of the Dark Peak, where the highest point of the catchment is the Kinder Scout plateau at ; through to the intensively farmed and drained flat fenland areas that exist alongside the lower tidal reaches, where ground levels can equal sea level. These lower reaches are protected from tidal flooding by a series of floodbanks and defences.
Elsewhere there is a distinct contrast between the open limestone areas of the White Peak in the Dove catchment, and the large woodland areas, including Sherwood Forest in the Dukeries area of the Idle catchment, the upland Charnwood Forest, and the National Forest in the Soar and Mease drainage basins respectively.
Land use is predominantly rural, with some three-quarters of the Trent catchment given over to agriculture. This ranges from moorland grazing of sheep in the upland areas, through to improved pasture and mixed farms in the middle reaches, where dairy farming is important. Intensive arable farming of cereals and root vegetables, chiefly potatoes and sugar beet occurs in the lowland areas, such as the Vale of Belvoir and the lower reaches of the Trent, Torne and Idle.
Water level management is important in these lowland areas, and the local watercourses are usually maintained by internal drainage boards and their successors, with improved drainage being assisted by the use of pumping stations to lift water into embanked carrier rivers, which subsequently discharge into the Trent.
The less populous rural areas are offset by a number of large urbanised areas including the conurbations of Stoke-on-Trent, Birmingham and the surrounding Black Country in the West Midlands; and in the East Midlands the major university cities and historical county seats of Leicester, Derby and Nottingham. Together these contain the majority of the 6 million people who live in the catchment.
The majority of these urban areas are in the upper reaches of either the Trent itself, as is the case with Stoke, or its tributaries. For example, Birmingham lies at the upper end of the Tame, and Leicester is located towards the head of the Soar. Whilst this is not unique for an English river, it does mean that there is an ongoing legacy of issues relating to urban runoff, pollution incidents, and effluent dilution from sewage treatment, industry and coal mining. Historically, these issues resulted in a considerable deterioration in the water quality of both the Trent and its tributaries, especially the Tame. To bring clean water to the West Midlands, Birmingham Corporation created a large reservoir chain and aqueduct system to bring water from the Elan Valley.