The River Jordan, Little Jordan or Otterspool Brook is a tributary of the

River Mersey The River Mersey () is a major river in North West England. Its name derives from Old English and means "boundary river", possibly referring to its having been a border between the ancient kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. For centuries it h ...

. It has now been

culvert A culvert is a structure that channels water past an obstacle or to a subterranean waterway. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe (fluid conveyance), pipe, reinforced concrete or other materia ...

ed for most of the lower part of its course, which runs through Otterspool Park in

Aigburth Aigburth () is a suburb of Liverpool, England. Located to the south of the city, it is bordered by Toxteth and Dingle to the north, Mossley Hill to the east, and Garston to the south, with the River Mersey forming its western boundary. Desc ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

. The river had two tributaries, the Upper and Lower Brooks. The Upper Brook rose near the playing fields in Wavertree, flowing past, and inspiring the name of, the Brook House pub. The Lower Brook had a source in Wavertree Botanic Gardens, where it rose in two ponds near Edge Lane; both branches joined in present-day

Sefton Park Sefton Park is a public park in south Liverpool, England. The park is in a conservation district of the same name, It is the largest public park in Liverpool and the Liverpool City Region. Suburbs neighbouring the park include Toxteth, Aigb ...

before flowing through a series of natural cascades into the Otterspool, a creek on the Mersey shore. The watercourse was recorded in the 13th century Chartulary of Whalley Abbey as the "Oskelesbrok", when it was described as forming the boundary of Toxteth, and flowing into "Oterpol".Baines, E. ''History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster'', 1836, pp.190-191 The name, also written as "Haskelesbroc" and "Hoskellesbrok" in the period, may contain a reference to the

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

personal name Askell.Ekwall, E. ''The Place-names of Lancashire'', v 11, 1923, p.95 The brook later gained the name of the "River Jordan", probably during the 17th century when Toxteth Park was disparked and let as farmland.Nightingale, Rev. B. ''Lancashire Nonconformity'', Heywood, pp.67-8 The first tenants were

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...

in religion and this has been suggested as the origin of the name "Jordan", as well as that of a nearby farm called "Jericho" and a rock called "David's Throne". Otterspool itself was one of the most important of the Mersey fisheries well into the 18th century, and was reputed to be the finest salmon fishery in the area.Otterspool Park
Liverpool Parks The course of the river was changed radically in the 19th century, when housing developments and parks were laid out and much of the watercourse was incorporated into a series of ornamental water features. The Upper Brook was dammed in Greenbank Park to form a lake, and both it and the Lower Brook were channelled into the Boating Lake in

. Below this point, the river is currently visible near the gates of Otterspool Park but has been culverted from that point, though many features of its valley are still visible in the park. The area of the river mouth is now part of the Otterspool Promenade, where the river's flow is now piped to the Mersey.

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Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...