The River Team is a

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage ...

of the

River Tyne The River Tyne is a river in North East England. Its length (excluding tributaries) is . It is formed by the North Tyne and the South Tyne, which converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Wate ...

Gateshead Gateshead () is a large town in northern England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank, opposite Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle to which it is joined by seven bridges. The town contains the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Sage ...

, England.

Etymology

The name ''Team'' may have a

Brittonic Brittonic or Brythonic may refer to: *Common Brittonic, or Brythonic, the Celtic language anciently spoken in Great Britain *Brittonic languages, a branch of the Celtic languages descended from Common Brittonic *Britons (Celtic people) The Br ...

origin. The name may be from the Brittonic root ''tā-'', with a sense of "melting, thawing, dissolving", plus a nasal root determinative, giving a form of ''*tā-m-'' or ''*tā-n-''. However, ''Team'' has also been associated with the

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, Dutch ...

''*temhx-'', "dark" and ''*tṃh-'', "cut" or "be cut".

Course

Its source is near Annfield Plain, where it is known as Kyo Burn. Then changing its name again to Causey Burn as it flows underneath the famous

Causey Arch The Causey Arch is a bridge near Stanley in County Durham, northern England. It is the oldest surviving single-arch railway bridge in the world, and a key element of the industrial heritage of England. It carried an early wagonway (horse-draw ...

. It then flows past

Beamish Museum Beamish Museum is the first regional open-air museum, in England, located at Beamish, near the town of Stanley, in County Durham, England. Beamish pioneered the concept of a living museum. By displaying duplicates or replaceable items, it wa ...

County Durham County Durham ( ), officially simply Durham,UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. is a ceremonial county in North East England.North East Assembly �About North East E ...

(where it is known as Beamish Burn) then crosses the border into Gateshead flowing through

Lamesley Lamesley is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 3,742. The village is on the southern outskirts of Gateshead, near to Birtley. T ...

. Continuing on into the

Team Valley Team Valley is a trading estate located in Gateshead. It is home to the Retail World retail park, with many large, international companies are based in the area's trading estate. In 2017, there were approximately 700 companies on the estate, empl ...

, the river flows through a culvert in the middle of the roundabout underneath the A1 road, it then continues through the Team Valley Trading Estate through a covered culvert, before emerging to the surface halfway along. It then flows through the site of the 1990 National Garden Festival, before finally discharging into the River Tyne in Dunston. This area is known as Teams, after the river.

Pollution

The River Team has long been regarded as one of the most polluted rivers in the area due to the discharges from Sewage works near Lamesley and heavy industry in the Team Valley. It is called "The Gut" by the residents of Dunston. However considerable improvements have now been made and the river is relatively clean.

Water quality

The Environment Agency measure water quality of the river systems in England. Each is given an overall ecological status, which may be one of five levels: high, good, moderate, poor and bad. There are several components that are used to determine this, including biological status, which looks at the quantity and varieties of

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

angiosperm Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s and fish. Chemical status, which compares the concentrations of various chemicals against known safe concentrations, is rated good or fail. Text was copied from this source, which is available under a
Open Government Licence v3.0
© Crown copyright. Water quality of the River Team in 2019:

Geology

Prior to the last ice age, the lower part of the River Team actually formed the lower part of the

River Wear The River Wear (, ) in North East England rises in the Pennines and flows eastwards, mostly through County Durham to the North Sea in the City of Sunderland. At long, it is one of the region's longest rivers, wends in a steep valley through th ...

, with a combined Tyne-Wear river continuing to the coast from Dunston. The ice diverted the River Wear to its current course towards the coast at

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

, with the smaller River Team flowing along its former course towards the River Tyne.

References

The River Team Corridor Project

Reviving the River Team
{{authority control

Team A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson (academic), Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interde ...

Team River 1Team