The River Brain is a tributary of the River Blackwater in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It gives its name to the town of Braintree, although Braintree lies on a low ridge between the Brain and the River Blackwater. To the north of Braintree it is known as Pods Brook. The brook rises near the village of

Bardfield Saling Bardfield Saling is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of The Salings, in the county of Essex, England. It is approximately west-northwest of Braintree and is 12 miles (19 km) north from the county town of Chelmsford ...

. Below Braintree the Brain joins the Blackwater in

Whet Mead Whet Mead is a 10.1 hectare Local Nature Reserve in Witham in Essex. It is owned and managed by Braintree District Council. This site was formerly a rubbish tip, and before that a sewage works. Most of it is grassland with many different floweri ...

Witham Witham () is a town in the county of Essex in the East of England, with a population ( 2011 census) of 25,353. It is part of the District of Braintree and is twinned with the town of Waldbröl, Germany. Witham stands between the city of Chelms ...

. In 2001, a "flood park" was planned to reduce the risk of overflow from the river.

References and external links

* Map and aerial photo sources for

grid reference A projected coordinate system, also known as a projected coordinate reference system, a planar coordinate system, or grid reference system, is a type of spatial reference system that represents locations on the Earth using cartesian coordin ...

: ** — the source of the Pods Brook ** — confluence with the Blackwater Brain, Essex {{England-river-stub