The River Calder is a long river that is one of the main tributaries of the

River Wyre The River Wyre is a river in Lancashire, England, United Kingdom, which flows into the Irish Sea at Fleetwood. It is approximately 28 miles (45 km) in length. The river is a County Biological Heritage Site and has a sheltered estuary ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

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 ...

. Like the other rivers in England with the name Calder, its name is thought to derive from a mixture of

Old Welsh Old Welsh ( cy, Hen Gymraeg) is the stage of the Welsh language from about 800 AD until the early 12th century when it developed into Middle Welsh.Koch, p. 1757. The preceding period, from the time Welsh became distinct from Common Brittonic ...

and Old British words meaning "hard and violent water or stream".

Description

The river rises near Fiendsdale Head in the

Forest of Bowland The Forest of Bowland, also known as the Bowland Fells and formerly the Chase of Bowland, is an area of gritstone fells, deep valleys and peat moorland, mostly in north-east Lancashire, England, with a small part in North Yorkshire (however ro ...

and flows first westwards then southwards through the villages of

Oakenclough Oakenclough () is an English hamlet located on the edge of the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire. Oakenclough is a small and scattered community, which appears to have developed largely as a result of a paper mill being sited here to make use of ...

and Calder Vale before passing under the

M6 motorway The M6 motorway is the longest motorway in the United Kingdom. It is located entirely within England, running for just over from the Midlands to the border with Scotland. It begins at Junction 19 of the M1 and the western end of the A14 at t ...

West Coast Main Line The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important railway corridors in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest ...

and under the Calder Aqueduct on

Lancaster Canal The Lancaster Canal is a canal in North West England, originally planned to run from Westhoughton in Lancashire to Kendal in south Cumbria (historically in Westmorland). The section around the crossing of the River Ribble was never completed, a ...

. It meets the Wyre at

Catterall Catterall is a village and civil parish in the borough of Wyre, Lancashire, England. Historically in the Amounderness Hundred, it is situated on the A6 between Lancaster and Preston, a short distance from the town of Garstang, and Myerscou ...

near the town of

Garstang Garstang is an ancient market town and civil parish within the Wyre borough of Lancashire, England. It is north of the city of Preston and the same distance south of Lancaster. In 2011, the parish had a total resident population of 4,268 ...

, at which point the Calder forms the boundary between the parishes of Catterall and

Barnacre-with-Bonds Barnacre-with-Bonds is a civil parish in the Wyre district of Lancashire, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 1,751 increasing to 2,148 at the 2011 Census. The parish covers an area to the south and east of Garstang ...

. The Calder is one of two rivers in Lancashire with the same name; the other River Calder flows from Burnley and into the

River Ribble The River Ribble runs through North Yorkshire and Lancashire in Northern England. It starts close to the Ribblehead Viaduct in North Yorkshire, and is one of the few that start in the Yorkshire Dales and flow westwards towards the Irish Sea (t ...

. Just west of the M6 Motorway, a feeder section supplies water via a

siphon A siphon (from grc, σίφων, síphōn, "pipe, tube", also spelled nonetymologically syphon) is any of a wide variety of devices that involve the flow of liquids through tubes. In a narrower sense, the word refers particularly to a tube in a ...

from the River Calder to the Lancaster canal; this intake has the ability to abstract the entire flow of water from the River Calder causing critical flow conditions further west of this point to its mouth with the River Wyre. Similarly, Barnacre and Grizedale Lea Reservoirs, which built in the 1800s just west of Oakenclough, can take all the flow from the upper reaches of the River Calder with no compensation during periods of low flow.

Settlements

* Calder Vale *

Tributaries

*Little Calder River *Nanny Brook *Calder Dyke *East Grain *North Grain

Gallery

File:River Calder - geograph.org.uk - 142458.jpg, The River Calder in its upper reaches File:Mill Pond Weir St Johns Wood Calder Vale after Snowfall - geograph.org.uk - 1204623.jpg, Mill Pond Weir St Johns Wood Calder Vale after Snowfall File:Weir and Path Above Calder Vale - geograph.org.uk - 1032463.jpg, Weir and Path Above Calder Vale File:Calder Intake - geograph.org.uk - 691332.jpg, Calder Intake File:River Calder Aqueduct - geograph.org.uk - 1132946.jpg, River Calder going under the Calder Aqueduct File:River Calder - geograph.org.uk - 1412004.jpg, River Calder looking downstream from the Calder Aqueduct

References

Sources

External links

Rivers of Lancashire Rivers of the Borough of Wyre

River Calder, Wyre The River Calder is a long river that is one of the main tributaries of the River Wyre in Lancashire, England. Like the other rivers in England with the name Calder, its name is thought to derive from a mixture of Old Welsh and Old British wo ...

1Calder {{England-river-stub