River Ottery
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The River Ottery () is a small river in northeast
Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...
, England, United Kingdom. The river is about long from its source southeast of Otterham to its confluence with the
River Tamar The Tamar (; ) is a river in south west England that forms most of the border between Devon (to the east) and Cornwall (to the west). A large part of the valley of the Tamar is protected as the Tamar Valley National Landscape (an Area of Outsta ...
at Nether Bridge, northeast of Launceston. The
headwaters The headwater of a river or stream is the geographical point of its beginning, specifically where surface runoff water begins to accumulate into a flowing channel of water. A river or stream into which one or many tributary rivers or streams flo ...
of the River Ottery are within the
civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...
of Otterham but formerly came under the parish of Forrabury and Minster. In 1311, the rector of that parish wrote: "..the river Ottery takes its rise in this parish and flows to Canworthy Water and so by Yeolmbridge to the river Tamar."


Hydrology and course

With its
tributaries A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream ('' main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which the ...
, the River Ottery forms a major sub-catchment of the Tamar system, draining of north Cornwall. The Ottery's
catchment area A catchment area in human geography, is the area from which a location, such as a city, service or institution, attracts a population that uses its services and economic opportunities. Catchment areas may be defined based on from where people are ...
is within the
Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a Geologic time scale, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era that spans 60 million years, from the end of the Devonian Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the ...
geological formation known as the
Culm Measures The Culm Measures are a thick sequence of geological stratum, strata originating during the Carboniferous Period that occur in south-west England, principally in Devon and Cornwall, now known as the Culm Supergroup. Its estimated thickness varies b ...
which stretches from
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 ...
to north Devon and across northeast Cornwall as far west as
Bodmin Moor Bodmin Moor () is a granite moorland in north-eastern Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is in size, and dates from the Carboniferous period of geology, geological history. It includes Brown Willy, the highest point in Cornwall, and Rough To ...
. The infant river initially flows north until it reaches the hamlet of Trengune. From here it adopts an east-southeasterly course which it follows to its confluence with the River Tamar. The largest tributaries to the River Ottery are Caudworthy Water and Bolsbridge Water which join the Ottery from the north and Canworthy Water which joins from the south. The River Ottery system was severely affected by flooding in north Cornwall on 16 August 2004 when up to eight inches of rain fell during a single afternoon. The Ottery headwaters at Marshgate and Otterham were the most severely affected. The river flows through an isolated area of mixed farming and the only riverside settlements of any size are Canworthy Water and Yeolmbridge.


Wildlife and conservation

The Cornwall Rivers Project notes five Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in the Ottery catchment including the Ottery Valley SSSI which has 33 hectares of increasingly threatened culm habitat and Kernick and Ottery Meadows SSSI, also noted for its biological interest. The project's page also notes: "The Ottery supports a broad range of wildlife including populations of
trout Trout (: trout) is a generic common name for numerous species of carnivorous freshwater ray-finned fishes belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', ''Salmo'' and ''Salvelinus'', all of which are members of the subfamily Salmoninae in the ...
and migratory fish,
otters Otters are carnivorous mammals in the Rank (zoology), subfamily Lutrinae. The 13 extant otter species are all semiaquatic, aquatic animal, aquatic, or Marine ecology, marine. Lutrinae is a branch of the Mustelidae Family (biology), family, whi ...
,
kingfishers Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly coloured birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species living in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, ...
,
sand martin The sand martin (''Riparia riparia''), also known as collared sand martin or common sand martin, and in the Americas as the bank swallow, is a migratory passerine bird in the swallow family Hirundinidae. It has a wide range in summer, embracing ...
s, dippers, curlews,
snipe A snipe is any of about 26 wading bird species in three genera in the family Scolopacidae. They are characterized by a very long, slender bill, eyes placed high on the head, and cryptic/ camouflaging plumage. ''Gallinago'' snipe have a nearly ...
and the
marsh fritillary The marsh fritillary (''Euphydryas aurinia'') is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. Commonly distributed in the Palearctic region, the marsh fritillary's common name derives from one of its several habitats, marshland. The prolonged larval st ...
butterfly."


History

The majority of the boundary between Cornwall and Devon follows the River Tamar, and Celtic place-names, such as those including the element ''tre-'', stop for the most part exactly at the Tamar, reflecting this ancient boundary. However, the part of Cornwall north of the River Ottery has few place-names including ''tre-'' and far more of Old English origin (such as those ending in ''-dun'' and ''-cot'') than the rest of the county. This indicates that the river formed an early boundary between the rump of
Dumnonia Dumnonia is the Latinised name for a Brythonic kingdom that existed in Sub-Roman Britain between the late 4th and late 8th centuries CE in the more westerly parts of present-day South West England. It was centred in the area of modern Devon, ...
and the westward expansion of the
Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...
kingdom of
Wessex The Kingdom of the West Saxons, also known as the Kingdom of Wessex, was an Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, kingdom in the south of Great Britain, from around 519 until Alfred the Great declared himself as King of the Anglo-Saxons in 886. The Anglo-Sa ...
.


Location

* Source coordinates   * Trengune (change of course) coordinates   * Canworthy Water (settlement) coordinates   * Yeolmbridge (settlement) coordinates   * Confluence with
River Tamar The Tamar (; ) is a river in south west England that forms most of the border between Devon (to the east) and Cornwall (to the west). A large part of the valley of the Tamar is protected as the Tamar Valley National Landscape (an Area of Outsta ...
coordinates  


References


External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ottery Rivers of Cornwall Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Cornwall 1Ottery