The River Wolf is a minor river in the west of 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 ...

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 ...

. Its name may come from a

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foot ...

or earlier name recorded by the Roman map-maker

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

(Ptolemy II 3 13) as Ουολιβα (Voliba) as a town of the

Dumnonii The Dumnonii or Dumnones were a Britons (historical), British List of ancient Celtic peoples and tribes, tribe who inhabited Dumnonia, the area now known as Cornwall and Devon (and some areas of present-day Dorset and Somerset) in the further pa ...

(it may be Broadbury Castle); rather than referring to the

wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, includin ...

animal. The river runs from Broadbury through the valley below Germansweek and empties into

Roadford Lake Roadford Lake, also known as Roadford Reservoir is a man-made reservoir fed by the River Wolf. It is located to the north-east of Broadwoodwidger in West Devon, east of Launceston and is the largest area of fresh water in the southwest of Eng ...

, a man-made reservoir built in 1989. In July 2006 some 100 million litres of water were released from the lake to help the survival of salmon in the river during a prolonged period of drought. After Roadford Lake the river continues through Slew Woods below the village of

Broadwoodwidger Broadwoodwidger is a village and civil parish in the Torridge District, Torridge district of Devon, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 548. The village is just to the north of the A30 road, and is about eight miles east ...

. It then continues in a southerly direction eventually merging with the River Thrushel just north of Tinhay and then joins the River Lyd at Lifton. The River Lyd eventually joins 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 the Devon/Cornwall border just east of Launceston. The United Kingdom's environmental organisation

Natural England Natural England is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It is responsible for ensuring that England's natural environment, including its land, flora and fauna, ...

currently runs a grant scheme called Catchment-sensitive farming. The River Wolf is included within one of the priority catchments targeted in this scheme

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolf Rivers of Devon 2Wolf