The River Lemon 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 ...

in the county of

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

in southwest England. It is a tributary of the

River Teign The River Teign is a river in the county of Devon, England. It is long and rises on Dartmoor, becomes an estuary just below Newton Abbot and reaches the English Channel at Teignmouth. Toponymy The river-name ''Teign'' is first attested in a ...

, starting on

Dartmoor Dartmoor is an upland area in southern Devon, South West England. The moorland and surrounding land has been protected by National Park status since 1951. Dartmoor National Park covers . The granite that forms the uplands dates from the Carb ...

by Haytor, and ending in

Newton Abbot Newton Abbot is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish on the River Teign in the Teignbridge, Teignbridge District of Devon, England. Its population was 24,029 in 2011, and was estimated at 26,655 in 2019. It grew rapidly in ...

. It rises on the south-east side of

near Haytor, joins with the River Sig and the Langworthy Brook at Sigford, then passes the village of Bickington. Lower down, it is joined by the Kestor Brook and it then flows through the woods in Bradley Valley, past the manor house of Bradley, and through the town of

where it flows through a tunnel below the town centre. Just below the town, the river joins the

at , near the head of its estuary. A considerable length of the River is designated as a Special Area of Conservation - The South Hams SAC for the Greater Horseshoe Bat, as protected flight corridors (this area extends 500m each side of the River). The name ''Lemon'' is a derivative of a Celtic word meaning ''

elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the genus ''Ulmus'' in the family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical- montane regions of North America and Eurasia, ...

''.

Floods

The river has several times caused major flooding in Newton Abbot, most notably on 19 December 1853, 14 November 1894, 6 August 1938, and 27 December 1979. To prevent further occurrences, a flood-control reservoir and dam were built in 1982, just below the confluence with the Kestor Brook at Holbeam. In December 2013, Nick Mutton, a local primary school teacher, died while trying to rescue his dog from the river. He was dragged from where he fell in to near Tucker's Maltings, on the other side of the town. The river was high due to torrential rain, causing the River Lemon to overflow.

Industrial use

During its operation from 1898 to 1974, the Newton Abbot power station discharged its used cooling water into the Lemon, having extracted it from the

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lemon Rivers of Devon Dartmoor 1Lemon

Floods

Industrial use

See also

References

Bibliography