The Clough River is a

river A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of ...

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

, England. A tributary of the River Rawthey, it flows for primarily through the

Garsdale Garsdale is a dale in the south-east of Cumbria, England. It lies within the Westmorland and Furness local government district and in the Yorkshire Dales National Park for planning purposes; it was historically a part of the West Riding of ...

valley.

Course

The river rises at Grisedale in south-eastern

, where a group of smaller

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a strea ...

s draining Grisedale Pike converge as Grisedale Beck. The young Clough River then goes through a short valley (

Grisedale Grisedale (sometimes Grisdale, or Grizedale rchaic is a south east facing Dale in Cumbria, England, east of Sedbergh, and west of Hawes. Grisedale Beck, which drains Baugh Fell, flows down the dale eastwards, and on reaching the valley flo ...

, "The Dale That Died"), and over a

waterfall A waterfall is any point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in seve ...

before being named Clough at Clough Farm, Garsdale Head, where it enters

, a valley formed by the river between Baugh Fell (to the north) and Rise Hill (to the south). The Clough is mainly shallow and rocky, with occasional pools large enough for swimming, though the water is always cold. The A684 (Northallerton to Kendal) road follows the river for seven miles with frequent bridges in the upper part of the dale. At Longstone Fell the main (former turnpike) road rises to a well-known view-point looking over the Howgill Fells, and the river descends to Danny Bridge, the site of a seventeenth-century mill on the “old road”, before merging with the River Rawthey at Dowbiggin Foot near

Sedbergh Sedbergh ( or ) is a town and civil parish in the ceremonial county of Cumbria. It falls within the historic boundaries of the West Riding of Yorkshire. Since April 2023, it has been administered by Westmorland and Furness local authority. Th ...

, and joining the

River Lune The River Lune (archaically sometimes Loyne) is a river in length in Cumbria and Lancashire, England. Etymology Several elucidations for the origin of the name ''Lune'' exist. Firstly, it may be that the name is Brittonic languages, Brittonic ...

at Middleton Bridge. In 1985 a geological walk, the Sedgwick Trail, named after the well-known geologist

Adam Sedgwick Adam Sedgwick FRS (; 22 March 1785 – 27 January 1873) was a British geologist and Anglican priest, one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Cambrian and Devonian period of the geological timescale. Based on work which he did ...

(1785-1873), was opened. It runs along the Clough from Danny Bridge and highlights rock features along the

Dent Fault The Dent Fault is a major fault (geology), fault zone on the boundary between the counties of Cumbria and North Yorkshire in northern England. It is named after the village of Dent, South Lakeland, Dent in Dentdale, on the western margin of the ...

. The ancient county through which the Clough River runs is the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, lieu ...

, and it is still part of the

Yorkshire Dales National Park The Yorkshire Dales National Park is a national park in England which covers most of the Yorkshire Dales, the Howgill Fells, and the Orton Fells. The Nidderdale area of the Yorkshire Dales is not within the national park, and has instead ...

, though its entire length is now within the

Westmorland and Furness Westmorland and Furness is a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Cumbria, England. The economy is mainly focused on tourism around both the Lake District and Cumbria Coast, shipbuilding and the Royal Port of Barrow, Royal ...

district of Cumbria.

References

External links

* Rivers of Cumbria 2Clough {{England-river-stub

Course

See also

References

External links