rivers

rivers. In the early 21st cent. motorways stride so effortlessly across great rivers that it is easy to overlook the part they have played in British history. We can distinguish a number of different aspects.(a) They were potentially defensible barriers and often formed the boundaries between early kingdoms or later shires. When Ostorius set out to subdue Britain, he conquered, according to Tacitus, the heartland between Severn and Trent. For centuries the Trent and the Humber were the border between north and south England; and the border between England and Scotland, which fluctuated considerably, eventually settled on the Tweed. The Severn, likewise, was at one time the border between England and Wales, until the English pushed it west to the Wye. In the south, the Thames was the effective border between Mercia and Wessex, and neither side found it easy to consolidate gains across the river. Even small rivers were important markers. When Alfred divided the kingdom at Wedmore in 878 with the Danish leader Guthrum, they took the lands east and west of the river Lea. When England was divided up into shires in the 11th cent. rivers were frequently the boundaries—the Tamar, Somerset Avon, Colne, Stour, Ouse, Welland, Dove, Teme, Tyne, Tees, and Mersey.(b) Loops and angles of rivers often provided the opportunity for a defensible settlement. The most spectacular example is perhaps at Durham, where the river Wear curls round the rocky promontory on which castle and cathedral are built. But there are many others. Shrewsbury is on a loop of the Severn; Bristol grew where the Frome joined the Avon, York where the Foss joined the Ouse; Malmesbury where the Tetbury and Sherston branches of the Avon converged.(c) River crossings, by ford or bridge, were of critical importance in both peace and war. They were the natural sites for castles—at Worcester, Oxford, Hereford, Bedford, Cambridge, Carlisle—and the stream of carts and horsemen invited taverns and inns, smiths and stables. Ipswich, Exeter, Gloucester, London, Newcastle all grew up at the first point where the river or estuary could be crossed. Many of the battles in British history were fought at or near river crossings—to prevent escapes, cut off reinforcements, or obstruct junctions. Simon de Montfort was trapped at Evesham in 1265 in the bend of the Avon; Thomas of Lancaster was caught at Boroughbridge in 1322 at the crossing of the Ure; Percy (Hotspur) in 1403, trying to reach his ally Glyndŵr in Wales, found that the king had taken possession of the crossing at Shrewsbury; the English Civil War began in 1642 with a cavalry skirmish at Powicke bridge, south of Worcester, on the river Teme.(d) Rivers facilitated communication and, until the introduction of turnpikes and macadamization in the 18th cent., transport by water was quicker and less fraught than by road or footpath. Towns on estuaries which provided harbours—Plymouth, Hull, Southampton—were particularly well placed, but inland navigation was also important. Few great towns were to be found far from rivers. With the development of river improvements and then canals in the 17th and 18th cents., inland ports—Bewdley, Gainsborough, Rotherham, Reading—flourished. The smallest barge had a capacity vastly greater than the sturdiest packhorse. Even small rivers, if improved, could be turned to good use. Defoe commented in the 1720s that Leominster's prosperity was due to the river Lugg, ‘lately made navigable to the very great profit of the trading part of this country, who have now a very great trade for their corn, wool and other products of this place into the river Wye, and from the Wye into the Severn, and so to Bristol’.(e) The water supply, provided that it was not too contaminated, enabled settlements to grow into thriving towns. There can be little doubt that one reason for the abandonment of Old Sarum in the early 13th cent. for Salisbury was that the old borough on its chalk hill (chosen for its defensive strength) had little water, while the new site to the south was at the confluence of the Avon, Nadder, and Bourne.(f) Rivers became valuable sources of power as soon as water-mills were introduced during the 9th cent. By the time of Domesday there were said to be more than 5,000 mills. In the later Middle Ages, power began to be applied to industry, notably to cloth manufacture, first in fulling, then to other processes. This gave a great advantage to areas with good rivers like west Wiltshire, the Cotswolds, and the Yorkshire dales.

J. A. Cannon