- left River Ouse, River Hull Basin area 24,240 km² | - location Trent Falls Bridges Humber Bridge | |
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- right River Trent, River Ancholme, River Freshney - location North Sea, between Spurn Head & Donna Nook - average 250 m/s (8,829 cu ft/s) - max 1,500 m/s (52,972 cu ft/s) | ||
The Humber /ˈhʌmbər/ is a large tidal estuary on the east coast of Northern England. It is formed at Trent Falls, Faxfleet, by the confluence of the tidal rivers Ouse and Trent. From here to the North Sea, it forms part of the boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire on the north bank and Lincolnshire on the south bank. Although the Humber is an estuary from the point at which it is formed, many maps show it as the River Humber.
Contents
- Map of Humber United Kingdom
- History
- Crossings
- Defences
- Crossing on foot
- Crossing by swimming
- Etymology
- References
Map of Humber, United Kingdom
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 on the north bank (where the River Hull joins), then meets the North Sea between Cleethorpes on the Lincolnshire side and the long and thin (but rapidly changing) headland of Spurn Head to the north.
Ports on the Humber include the Port of Hull, Port of Grimsby, Port of Immingham, as well as lesser ports at New Holland and North Killingholme Haven. The estuary is navigable here for the largest of deep-sea vessels. Inland connections for smaller craft are extensive but handle only one quarter of the goods traffic handled in the Thames.
History
The Humber is now an estuary. When the world sea level was lower during the Ice Ages, the Humber had a long freshwater course across what was then the dry bed of the North Sea.
In the Anglo-Saxon period, the Humber was a major boundary, separating Northumbria from the southern kingdoms. The name Northumbria came from Anglo-Saxon Norðhymbre (plural) = "the people north of the Humber". The Humber currently forms the boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire, to the north and North and North East Lincolnshire, to the south.
From 1974 to 1996, the areas now known as the East Riding of Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire constituted the county of Humberside.
On 23 August 1921, the British airship R38 crashed into the estuary near Hull, killing 44 of the 49 crew on board.
Crossings
The estuary's only modern crossing is the Humber Bridge, which was once the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world. Now it is the eighth longest.
Before the bridge was built in 1981, 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. Although the railway to New Holland closed in 1977, 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 one mile (1.6 km) across.
Defences
The Humber Forts were built in the mouth of the river for the First World War. 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 is further downstream, a Napoleonic-era emplacement replaced in the early 20th century by Stallinborough Battery opposite Sunk Island.
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. He started his trek on the north bank at Brough; four hours later, he emerged on the south bank at Whitton. He is 6 feet 9 inches (2.06 m) 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 raced James May who drove an Alfa Romeo 159 around the inland part of the estuary without using the Humber Bridge.
Crossing by swimming
On Saturday 26 August 1911 Miss Alice Maud Boyall became the first woman to swim the Humber, Boyall aged 19 residing in Hull was the Yorkshire swimming champion crossed the Humber from Hull to New Holland Pier swimming the distance in 50 minutes, only 6 minutes slower than 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 swim approximately 1 1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) in length.
Etymology
This river's name is recorded in Anglo-Saxon times as Humbre (Anglo-Saxon) and Humbri (Vulgar Latin dative) / Umbri (Classical Latin dative). The Humber was once known as the Abus, for example in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene. The Latin name Abus (probably from Latin verb Abdo which means to cover with shadows) has the meaning of black/dark river. The successive name Humbre/Humbri/Umbri could continue to have the same meaning; in fact, the Latin verb umbro means "to cover with shadows" with the sense of black/dark river. Another hypothesis is that, since its name recurs in "Humber Brook" near "Humber Court" in Herefordshire or Worcestershire, the word humbr- may have been a word that meant "river", or something similar, in an aboriginal language that had been spoken in England before the Celts migrated there (compare Tardebigge). An element *ambri- 'channel, river' is reconstructible for proto-Celtic and the Ancient Celtic prefix *su- 'good' routinely developed into Welsh *hy-.
The Humber features regularly in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 12th-century fictional chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae. According to Geoffrey, the Humber, invariably referred to by the Latin word for river, was named after "Humber the Hun", who drowned there while trying to invade in the earliest days of Britain's settlement.
Andrew Marvell's poem "To His Coy Mistress" mentions "the tide of Humber".