The River Eamont 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 England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

and one of the major tributaries of the River Eden. The name of the river is from

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

(ēa-gemōt) and is a back formation from Eamont Bridge which means the ''junction of streams.'' The river is formed by the outflow from

Ullswater Ullswater is a glacial lake in Cumbria, England and part of the Lake District National Park. It is the second largest lake in the region by both area and volume, after Windermere. The lake is about long, wide, and has a maximum depth of . I ...

in the

Lake District The Lake District, also known as ''the Lakes'' or ''Lakeland'', is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in Cumbria, North West England. It is famous for its landscape, including its lakes, coast, and mou ...

, later augmented by Dacre Beck from the west and the River Lowther which carries the water from Haweswater north to the Eamont at Penrith. It reaches the Eden east of Penrith. The river has flooded on numerous occasions; the most recent was when

Storm Desmond Storm Desmond was an extratropical cyclone and fourth named storm of the 2015–16 UK and Ireland windstorm season, notable for directing a plume of moist air, known as an atmospheric river, which brought record amounts of orographic rainfall ...

hit in December 2015. During the flooding, 300-year old Pooley Bridge was washed away and a temporary bridge had to be installed to reconnect the two halves of the village. The same storm damaged the

grade I In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

listed Eamont Bridge, but after masonry work, it re-opened in March 2016. In April 2019 preparatory works began to replace the temporary bridge with a new bridge. The crossing was closed from September 2019 until Easter 2020, while the new bridge was installed. The river is also a stronghold of the endangered white clawed crayfish ('' Austropotamobius pallipes'').

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Eamont 1Eamont {{England-river-stub