River Nene
The
River Nene is a
river in the east of
England. It flows for 91 miles (147 km) through
Northamptonshire,
Cambridgeshire and
Lincolnshire. The
tidal river forms the border between Cambridgeshire and
Norfolk for about six kilometres.
The river rises at sources near
Badby (the nearby village of Newnham appears to be named after it),
Naseby and
Yelvertoft, Northamptonshire, then it flows through
arable land, before entering the modern industrial landscape of
Northampton,
Wellingborough and
Irthlingborough to flow among its
gravel pits. At TL116976, the
Romans bridged the river with
Ermine Street in the
first century.
Having passed among the gentle hills of
Northamptonshire it enters the rural part of the
City of Peterborough, passes the
Nene Valley Railway and the East of England Showground. After the
cathedral city itself, the landscape changes to the
Nene Washes in
The Fens and their vast, seemingly endless horizons. It flows through
Wisbech, then
Sutton Bridge in
Lincolnshire, and it finally enters the
North Sea at
The Wash between two towers known as "the lighthouses".
The Nene links the
Grand Union Canal to the
River Great Ouse, via the
Middle Level system. Much of its route has been upgraded to a wide canal with locks at regular intervals. Some sections where the "canal" runs adjacent to the "river" are known as the "Nene Navigation".
Pronunciation of the river's name is a bone of contention in its locality, and changes as one moves downstream. Through Northamptonshire locals mostly refer to it as the (rhyming with "hen"), but around Peterborough it changes to (rhyming with "mean"). The spelling was "Nen" until the beginning of the 20th Century, and the point at which the pronunciation changes has been moving further inland for many years.
The river gave its name to the former Nene College of Higher Education in Northampton, now
University of Northampton.
The river also gave its name to the
Rolls-Royce Nene turbojet engine,
Rolls-Royce practice being to name their
gas turbine designs after British rivers.
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Rivers of the United Kingdom
