Rivers of my life
Created | Updated Sep 10, 2008
Here's a place for people to tell us about rivers they've lived near. I'll kick it off with some stuff about rivers (and a stream) that I've known:
Rivers in my life
I grew up in a cottage beside a stream high above the Golden Valley in Herefordshire. I went to school in the village in the valley where we were taught that the valley and its river – the Dore – were named by the Normans. Dore comes, we were told, from the French d’or, of gold. In the nearby Norman Church there is a plaster model of a fish with a golden chain around it that is said to have been caught in the river.
Cross the ridge on the other side of the valley and you are in the Wye valley. In the same school we were told how three rivers flow from near the summit of Plynlimon, a mountain in mid-Wales. One, the Ystwth takes the short route, down the west side of the mountain and into the sea at Aberystwth. The Severn runs down the north side of the mountain then turns east through Shrewsbury then south through Worcester, Tewkesbury and Gloucester running out to sea as the Bristol Channel. The Wye flows east from the mountain, turning south at Hay-on-Wye and passing through Hereford and Ross-on-Wye to enter the Severn estuary at Chepstow.
For a brief period in the 1970’s I worked at a factory on the banks of the Umkomaas river in South Africa.
For most of the 1980’s I lived in the seaside resort of Cleethorpes on the south side of the Humber estuary. Through the 1990’s and on to 2006 I lived close to the point where 3 great northern English rivers and one from the Midlands come together to form that estuary. The Ouse comes south through York and Selby to be joined by the Ayre flowing east from Bradford and Leeds and then by the Don flowing north from Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster. Finally, they are all joined by the Trent flowing north from the great Midland towns of Stoke, Derby and Nottingham.
Now I live close to the source of the Irish river Barrow which for much of its journey from the Slieve Bloom mountains to the sea forms boundaries between counties: Laois and Offaly, Laois and Kildare, Laois and Carlow, Carlow/Kilkenny, Kilkenny/Wexford until joined by the Nore and Suir to flow into the sea at Waterford
Rivers in my life
I grew up in a cottage beside a stream high above the Golden Valley in Herefordshire. I went to school in the village in the valley where we were taught that the valley and its river – the Dore – were named by the Normans. Dore comes, we were told, from the French d’or, of gold. In the nearby Norman Church there is a plaster model of a fish with a golden chain around it that is said to have been caught in the river.
Cross the ridge on the other side of the valley and you are in the Wye valley. In the same school we were told how three rivers flow from near the summit of Plynlimon, a mountain in mid-Wales. One, the Ystwth takes the short route, down the west side of the mountain and into the sea at Aberystwth. The Severn runs down the north side of the mountain then turns east through Shrewsbury then south through Worcester, Tewkesbury and Gloucester running out to sea as the Bristol Channel. The Wye flows east from the mountain, turning south at Hay-on-Wye and passing through Hereford and Ross-on-Wye to enter the Severn estuary at Chepstow.
For a brief period in the 1970’s I worked at a factory on the banks of the Umkomaas river in South Africa.
For most of the 1980’s I lived in the seaside resort of Cleethorpes on the south side of the Humber estuary. Through the 1990’s and on to 2006 I lived close to the point where 3 great northern English rivers and one from the Midlands come together to form that estuary. The Ouse comes south through York and Selby to be joined by the Ayre flowing east from Bradford and Leeds and then by the Don flowing north from Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster. Finally, they are all joined by the Trent flowing north from the great Midland towns of Stoke, Derby and Nottingham.
Now I live close to the source of the Irish river Barrow which for much of its journey from the Slieve Bloom mountains to the sea forms boundaries between counties: Laois and Offaly, Laois and Kildare, Laois and Carlow, Carlow/Kilkenny, Kilkenny/Wexford until joined by the Nore and Suir to flow into the sea at Waterford
