The Humber is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of

Northern England Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angles, Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Scandinavian York, K ...

. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal rivers

Ouse Ouse may refer to: Places Rivers in England * River Ouse, Yorkshire * River Ouse, Sussex * River Great Ouse, Northamptonshire and East Anglia ** River Little Ouse, a tributary of the River Great Ouse Other places * Ouse, Tasmania, a town in Aus ...

and Trent. From there to the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...

, it forms part of the boundary between the

East Riding of Yorkshire The East Riding of Yorkshire, or simply East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, South Yorkshire t ...

on the north bank and North Lincolnshire on the south bank. Although the Humber is an

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

from the point at which it is formed, many maps show it as the River Humber. Below Trent Falls, the Humber passes the junction with the Market Weighton Canal on the north shore, the confluence of the River Ancholme on the south shore; between North Ferriby and South Ferriby and under the Humber Bridge; between Barton-upon-Humber on the south bank and

Kingston upon Hull Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south- ...

on the north bank (where the River Hull joins), then meets the

between Cleethorpes on the Lincolnshire side and the long and thin headland of Spurn Head to the north. Ports on the Humber include the

Port of Hull The Port of Hull is a port at the confluence of the River Hull and the Humber Estuary in Kingston upon Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Seaborne trade at the port can be traced to at least the 13th century, originally con ...

, the

Port of Grimsby The Port of Grimsby is located on the south bank of the Humber Estuary at Grimsby in North East Lincolnshire. Sea trade out of Grimsby dates to at least the medieval period. The ''Grimsby Haven Company'' began dock development in the late 170 ...

and the

Port of Immingham The Port of Immingham, also known as Immingham Dock, is a major port on the east coast of England, located on the south bank of the Humber Estuary in the town of Immingham, Lincolnshire. In 2019, the Port of Grimsby & Immingham was the largest ...

; there are lesser ports at New Holland and

North Killingholme Haven North Killingholme Haven is a water outlet on the south bank of the Humber Estuary in the civil parish of North Killingholme, to the north-west of the Port of Immingham. The area was used at the beginning of the 20th century for clay extraction ...

. The estuary is navigable for the largest of deep-sea vessels. Inland connections for smaller craft are extensive but handle only a quarter of the goods traffic handled in the Thames.

History

Although it is now an

, the Humber had a much longer freshwater course during the Ice Age, extending across what was the dry bed of the

. The Humber features regularly in medieval British literature. In the Welsh Triads, the Humber is one of the three principal rivers of Britain (together with

the Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

and the River Severn) and is continually mentioned throughout the Brut y Brenhinedd as a boundary between the southern kingdom ( Lloegyr) and various northern kingdoms. In Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th-century chronicle (), the Humber is named for " Humber the Hun", an invader who drowned there during battle in the earliest days of the chronicle. The Humber remained an important boundary throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, separating Northumbria from the southern kingdoms. The name ''Northumbria'' derives from the Anglo-Saxon (plural) = "the people north of the Humber". The Humber is recorded with the abbreviation ''Fl. Abi'' (The Abus river, grc, Ἄβος) in

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...

's Geographia, discharging into the German Ocean (the

) south of

Ocelum Promontorium Spurn is a narrow sand tidal island located off the tip of the coast of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England that reaches into the North Sea and forms the north bank of the mouth of the Humber Estuary. It was a spit with a semi-permanent con ...

(Spurn Head). Ptolemy also gives the Iron Age tribes of the area as the Coritani south of the Humber and the Parisi to the north. In the 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe, the eponymous protagonist leaves England on a ship departing from The Humber. On 23 August 1921, the British

airship An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early ...

R38 crashed into the estuary near Hull, killing 44 of the 49 crew on board. From 1974 to 1996, the areas now known as the

, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire constituted the county of

Humberside Humberside () was a non-metropolitan and ceremonial county in Northern England from 1 April 1974 until 1 April 1996. It was composed of land from either side of the Humber Estuary, created from portions of the East Riding of Yorkshire, We ...

. The Humber, from 1996, forms a boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire (to the north) and North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire, to the south.

Crossings

The estuary's only modern crossing is the Humber Bridge, which was the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world from its construction in 1981 until 1998. It is now the eleventh longest. Before the bridge was built, a series of paddle steamers operated from the Corporation Pier railway station at the Victoria Pier in Hull to the railway pier in New Holland. Steam ferries started in 1841, and in 1848 were purchased by the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. They, and their successors, ran the ferry until the bridge opened in 1981. Railway passenger and car traffic continued to use the pier until the end of ferry operations. The line of the bridge is similar to an ancient ferry route from Hessle to Barton upon Humber, which is noted in the '' Domesday Book'' and in a charter of 1281. The ferry was recorded as still operating in 1856, into the railway era. The Humber was then across.

Defences

The Humber Forts were built in the mouth of the river for the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. Planned in 1914, their construction started in 1915 and they were not completed until 1919. A coastal battery at Easington, ''Fort Goodwin'' or ''Kilnsea Battery'', faced the Bull Sands Fort. They were also garrisoned during the Second World War, and were finally abandoned for military use in 1956.

Fort Paull Fort Paull was a gun battery situated on the north bank of the Humber, near the village of Paull, downstream from Hull in northern England. History Batteries have been built at Paull by Henry VIII, Charles I during the Civil War during the ...

is further upstream, a Napoleonic-era emplacement replaced in the early 20th century by ''Stallingborough Battery'' opposite

Sunk Island Sunk Island is a Crown Estate village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies south of Ottringham and to the north of the Humber Estuary. The Greenwich Meridian passes through the east of the parish. According to ...

Crossing on foot

Graham Boanas, a Hull man, is believed to be the first man to succeed in wading across the Humber since ancient Roman times. The feat, in August 2005, was attempted to raise cash and awareness for the medical research charity,

DebRA Debra is a feminine given name. Debra may refer to: People * Debra Adelaide (born 1958), Australian writer * Debra Allbery (born 1957), American poet * Debra R. Anderson (1949-2022), American politician * Debra Austin (born 1955), American bal ...

. He started his trek on the north bank at Brough; four hours later, he emerged on the south bank at Whitton. He is tall and took advantage of a very low tide. He replicated this achievement on the television programme '' Top Gear'' (Series 10 Episode 6) when he beat James May who drove an Alfa Romeo 159 around the inland part of the estuary in a race without using the Humber Bridge.

Crossing by swimming

On Saturday 26 August 1911, Alice Maud Boyall became the first woman to swim the Humber. Boyall, then aged 19 and living in Hull, was the Yorkshire swimming champion. She crossed the Humber from Hull to New Holland Pier swimming the distance in 50 minutes, 6 minutes slower than the existing men's record. Since 2011 Warners Health have organised the 'Warners Health Humber Charity Business Swim'. Twelve swimmers from companies across the Yorkshire region train and swim in an ellipse from the south bank to the north bank of the river under the Humber Bridge over a total distance of approximately . Since then, an organised group crossing at the Humber Bridge has become an annual event, with a small number of pre-selected swimmers crossing in a 'pod' which remains close together, in aid of Humber Rescue. In 2019 competitive open water swimmer Richard Royal became the first person to attempt and complete a two-way swim across the river, beginning and finishing at Hessle foreshore, with Barton on the south bank as the mid-way point, covering a total of 4,085 m. Royal holds the record for the fastest one-way swim across the Humber (35 minutes 11 seconds) and the fastest two-way swim (1 hour, 13 minutes, 46 seconds). He raised over £900 for Humber Rescue, who provided safety support during the swim. Hull and Humber Estuary 2013-03

Etymologies

Most European hydronyms are

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 Foo ...

in origin and numerous Celtic or Pre-Celtic derivations for ''Humber'' have been suggested. The name ''Humber'' may be a Brittonic formation containing ''- b-ṛ'', a variant of the element ''*amb'' meaning "moisture", with the prefix ''*hu-'' meaning "good, well" (c.f.

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...

''hy-'', in ''Hywel'', etc). The first element may also be ''*hū-'', with connotations of "seethe, boil, soak", of which a variant forms the name of the adjoining River Hull. The estuary appears in some

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

sources as (A name used by Edmund Spenser in '' The Faerie Queene''). This is possibly a Latinisation of the Celtic form (

for river mouth or estuary) but is erroneously given as a name for both the Humber and

The Ouse The Ouse is a tidal estuary in northern Shapinsay, Orkney Islands. This water body has been shown on early maps of the island in a very similar shape to its current geometry. The Ouse is fed by small rivulets and upland springs that rise on the ...

as one continuous watercourse. Both and may record an older

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...

word for water or river, (as in the 'Five Rivers' of the

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi Language, Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also Romanization, romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the I ...

). An alternative derivation may be from the Latin verb meaning "to hide, to conceal". The successive name ''Humbre''/''Humbri''/''Umbri'' may continue the meaning via the Latin verb also meaning "to cover with shadows".

Ecology

Many fish live in and also migrate along the Humber when returning from the sea to their spawning grounds in Yorkshire,

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...

and Derbyshire. Salmon, sole, cod, eel, flounder, plaice, sprat, lamprey and

sand goby The sand goby (''Pomatoschistus minutus''), also known as a polewig or pollybait, is a species of ray-finned fish native to marine and brackish waters European waters from the Baltic Sea through the Mediterranean Sea and into the Black Sea where ...

have all been caught within the estuary. The Humber is also a good place for over-wintering birds and is a good breeding ground for

bitterns Bitterns are birds belonging to the subfamily Botaurinae of the heron family Ardeidae. Bitterns tend to be shorter-necked and more secretive than other members of the family. They were called ''hæferblæte'' in Old English; the word "bittern" ...

marsh harrier The marsh harriers are birds of prey of the harrier subfamily. They are medium-sized raptors and the largest and broadest-winged harriers. Most of them are associated with marshland and dense reedbeds. They are found almost worldwide, excluding ...

s, little terns and avocets. It forms part of the Severn-Trent flyway, a route used by

migratory birds Bird migration is the regular seasonal movement, often north and south along a flyway, between breeding and wintering grounds. Many species of bird migrate. Migration carries high costs in predation and mortality, including from hunting b ...

to cross

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It ...

. In 2019 the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and the University of Hull re-introduced the river oyster into the Humber after a sixty-year absence.

References

External links

River Humber Ferries
��Private web site about the Steam era ferries
www.humber.com
��Associated British Ports, Humber group. Includes daily details of major shipping movements
www.humberpacketboats.co.uk
��Extensive private web site about history of river trading in Humber and tributaries. * * {{Authority control Estuaries of England Landforms of the North Sea Ramsar sites in England River navigations in the United Kingdom Rivers of Lincolnshire Rivers of the East Riding of Yorkshire Natural regions of England