River Teign

River Teign
Catchment area and course of the River Teign
Data
location	Devon , England , UK
River system	River Teign
source	in Dartmoor 50 ° 38 ′ 19 ″  N , 3 ° 57 ′ 31 ″  W.
Source height	528  m ASL
muzzle	in Lyme Bay of the English Channel Coordinates: 50 ° 32 ′ 23 "  N , 3 ° 30 ′ 2"  W 50 ° 32 ′ 23 "  N , 3 ° 30 ′ 2"  W
length	50 km
Left tributaries	Blackaton Brook , Fingle Brook , Reedy Brook , Sowton Brook , Bramble Brook , Kate Brook
Right tributaries	Beadon Brook , River Bovey , River Lemon , Aller Brook
Small towns	Teignmouth ; Newton Abbot
Sunset on the estuary of the River Teign

The River Teign ([ ˈteɪn ] or [ ˈtiːn ]) is a river in the county of Devon in south-west England . It is 50 km long and has its source in Dartmoor . It forms an estuary directly below Newton Abbot and flows into the English Channel at Teignmouth .

Toponym

The name of the river is first mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon document from 739 as Teng . The name comes from pre-Roman times and is related to the Welsh taen , which means 'spray' or 'trickle' and simply means a stream.

The river gives its name to numerous places including Teigncombe, Drewsteignton , Canonteign , Teigngrace , Kingsteignton (which was once one of the largest villages in England), Bishopsteignton , Teignharvey and the second largest settlement along its course, Teignmouth . The villages of Combeinteignhead and Stokeinteignhead , on the other side of the estuary across from Bishopsteignton, are not named after the river.

River course

The River Teign has its source in Dartmoor , like many of the larger Devonian rivers. It has two separate springs: one at Teign Head, where the North Teign rises, which flows northeast and is crossed by a clapper bridge at Teigncombe . On its bank near the mouth of the Walla Brook stands the Tolmen Stone with a large round hole. The other source has its source at Gray Wethers and forms the shorter South Teign , which flows through the Fernworthy Forest and a water reservoir of the same name. The two arms of the spring join at the Leigh Bridge near Chagford to the River Teign, which leaves the moor on its east side and flows below Castle Drogo through a valley with steep banks. At Dunsford there is a nature reserve on the east bank.

It then flows south along the eastern edge of the moor through a narrow valley, in which the Teign Valley Line ran until it was closed in 1967 . Past Chudleigh and Chudleigh Knighton , the river flows through the Bovey Basin , where pottery clay is extracted, and then between Kingsteignton and Newton Abbot , where from 1898 to 1974 the Newton Abbot Power Station took cooling water from the river and this after use in the river Lemon , which flows further downstream into the River Teign.

Below Newton Abbot, the river suddenly turns east and comes under the influence of the tides . It widens to an estuary that reaches the English Channel at Teignmouth.

River crossings

Fingle Bridge is a Grade II * listed building and crosses the river at Drewsteignton.

Until 1827, Teign Bridge at Teigngrace was the most downstream bridge over the river. When this was rebuilt in 1815, it turned out that at least four bridges had previously been built at this point over the remains of the respective previous buildings. According to PT Taylor, who researched the matter at the time, the last or top bridge was built in the 16th century. The red stone structure was built in the 13th century in the Salt Marsh; since then, layers of earth ten feet thick have been deposited. He assumes that the wooden bridge dates from the time of the conquest and that the light-colored stone bridge was a Roman structure. In 1976 a 550 m long bridge with eleven spans was built directly below Newton Abbot over the estuary to guide the relocated A380 across the water.

Since 1827 Shaldon Bridge , which runs the present A379 near the mouth over the estuary, has been the most downstream bridge to cross; below there is a passenger ferry between Teignmouth and Shaldon .

navigability

The River Teign at Fingle Bridge and Castle Drogo

Ships and barges

The port of Teignmouth, right at the mouth of the estuary, is approached by ships that mostly transport clay, wood and wheat.

The lower course of the river is navigable as far as Newton Abbot , but only for vehicles with a low body, because only 2.9 m high ships can pass under the Shaldon Bridge.

The river's Whitelake Channel connects two now-unused short canals that were built to facilitate the clay trade in the area. The Stover Canal leads to Teigngrace (and is supplied at the head by the River Teign); later there was the end point of the Haytor Granite Tramway , which was used to transport granite . The second connection was less than a mile long and led to the Hackney Canal , which had connected the river to a pit at Kingsteignton; now a shopping mall is located here and the canal runs through what is now Newton Abbot Racecourse .

Kayaks

At least between Leigh Bridge and Steps Bridge, the river is used by kayaks.

Fishing

The Teign estuary is known for catching flounder ; A record British specimen was caught here in 1994. Other common species are the mullet in the estuary and trout further up the river.

supporting documents

1. ^ ^{A b} Eilert Ekwall: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names. P. 462.
2. ↑ Tolmen Stone | Legendary Dartmoor . Retrieved April 17, 2016.
3. ↑ Dunsford Nature Reserve ( Memento April 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
4. ^ JJ Jusserand: English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages. T. Fisher Unwin, London 1891, p. 69 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
5. ↑ Michael Hawkins: Devon roads. An illustrated survey of the development and management of Devon's highway network . Devon Books, Exeter 1988, ISBN 0-86114-817-7 , pp. 85 .
6. ^ Teignmouth Harbor Commission: Navigation and Safety ( Memento of April 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
7. ^ UK Rivers Guidebook - South West England
8. ↑ Flounder | Britishseafishing.co.uk . Retrieved April 17, 2016.
9. ^ River Teign . Carp info. Retrieved July 9, 2016.