The River Tean is a small river in the

English county The counties of England are a type of subdivision of England. Counties have been used as administrative areas in England since Anglo-Saxon times. There are three definitions of county in England: the 48 ceremonial counties used for the purpo ...

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation ''Staffs''.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, ...

.OS Explorer Map 259: ''Derby: Uttoxeter, Ashbourne and Cheadle''. .

Description

This short river is a tributary of the River Dove; running south-east from its source at

Dilhorne Dilhorne is an ancient parish and village in Staffordshire, three miles from Cheadle, Staffordshire, Cheadle and six miles from Stoke-on-Trent. The village is within the Staffordshire Moorlands area. Historically the village has been in the ...

Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for Dilhorne
. ''A Vision of Britain Through Time''. University of Portsmouth, Department of Geography. Retrieved 24 April 2013. to its confluence with the Dove east of

Uttoxeter Uttoxeter ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in the East Staffordshire borough of Staffordshire, England. It is near to the Derbyshire county border. The town is from Burton upon Trent via the A50 and the A38, from Stafford via the A51 ...

. The following settlements are located along the river * Dilhorne (source) * Cheadle * Tean *

Checkley Checkley is a village and civil parish in the district of Staffordshire Moorlands in the English county of Staffordshire.OS Explorer Map 259: Derby, Ashbourne and Cheadle: (1:25 000) :Beamhurst *

Spath Spath is a small village located north of Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, England. The village is on the River Tean and is separated from Uttoxeter by the A50 road. History In UK railway history, Spath was on the now disused Churnet Valley Lin ...

* Uttoxeter (confluence with the River Dove) Water levels are measured at two locations, Upper Tean and Leasows Farm north of Uttoxeter.

Pollution

The river is subject to pollution from a range of diffuse and point sources, including sewage discharge, urban development and poor livestock management.

Environment Agency The Environment Agency (EA) is a non-departmental public body, established in 1996 and sponsored by the United Kingdom government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with responsibilities relating to the protection and enha ...

data shows that in 2023, the river was polluted by

Severn Trent Water Severn Trent plc is a water company based in Coventry, England. It supplies 4.6 million households and business across the Midlands and Wales. It is traded on the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. Severn Trent, the ...

on 106 occasions, totaling 335 hours of continuous discharge. Discharges along the river had steadily decreased between 2020 and 2022 but increased in 2023. Historic and ongoing pollution has led to a complete kill of a four mile stretch of the river below the Severn Trent Water sewage treatment plant at Checkley. Published Event Duration Monitoring (EDM) data shows that raw sewage discharges from the Combined Sewer Outfalls (CSO) are increasing in frequency, even during dry periods.

Angling

At least one angling club operates along the river, which supports populations of grayling and

brown trout The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a species of salmonid ray-finned fish and the most widely distributed species of the genus ''Salmo'', endemic to most of Europe, West Asia and parts of North Africa, and has been widely introduced globally ...

, with lesser numbers of

river chub A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside 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 its course if it r ...

common dace The common dace (''Leuciscus leuciscus'') is a species of freshwater and brackish water ray-finned fish from the family Leuciscidae which is native to Europe but which has been introduced to other parts of the world. It is a quarry species for co ...

and

Perch Perch is a common name for freshwater fish from the genus ''Perca'', which belongs to the family Percidae of the large order Perciformes. The name comes from , meaning the type species of this genus, the European perch (''P. fluviatilis'') ...

. Stretches of the river are suitable for

fly fishing Fly fishing is an angling technique that uses an ultra-lightweight lure called an artificial fly, which typically mimics small invertebrates such as flying and aquatic insects to attract and catch fish. Because the mass of the fly lure is in ...

References

Rivers of Staffordshire 1Tean {{England-river-stub