26-680: The River Nidd is a tributary of the River Ouse in the English county of North Yorkshire . It rises in Nidderdale at Nidd Head Spring on the slopes of Great Whernside. In its first few miles it has been dammed three times, creating Angram Reservoir , Scar House Reservoir and Gouthwaite Reservoir , which attract a total of around 150,000 visitors a year. It joins the River Ouse at Nun Monkton . The upper river valley, Nidderdale ,
52-417: A dam height of 61 metres (200 ft) covering 34 hectares with a volume of 1,041 million gallons and a depth of 33.4 metres (110 ft). A temporary village was built at Scar House to house the workers building the reservoirs and some remains can still be seen. The old Village Hall was moved to Darley, where it now serves as the local Village Hall. The dam at Scar House was completed in 1936. The dam height
78-400: A new river, to be given its own name, perhaps one already known to the people who live upon its banks. Conversely, explorers approaching a new land from the sea encounter its rivers at their mouths, where they name them on their charts, then, following a river upstream, encounter each tributary as a forking of the stream to the right and to the left, which then appear on their charts as such; or
104-400: A river or stream that branches off from and flows away from the main stream. Distributaries are most often found in river deltas . Right tributary , or right-bank tributary , and left tributary , or left-bank tributary , describe the orientation of the tributary relative to the flow of the main stem river. These terms are defined from the perspective of looking downstream, that is, facing
130-464: Is 71 m (233 ft) with the reservoir covering area 70 hectares and a depth of36.3 metres (119 ft) giving a volume of 2,200 million gallons. The reservoir is fed almost exclusively from the Angram dam. Gouthwaite reservoir is designated a Site for Special Scientific Interest. It provides a compensation release for the river. It covers an area of 312 acres (126 ha). The Nidd can overflow
156-449: Is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream ( 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 into which they flow, drain the surrounding drainage basin of its surface water and groundwater , leading the water out into an ocean. The Irtysh is a chief tributary of the Ob river and
182-411: Is also the longest tributary river in the world with a length of 4,248 km (2,640 mi). The Madeira River is the largest tributary river by volume in the world with an average discharge of 31,200 m /s (1.1 million cu ft/s). A confluence , where two or more bodies of water meet, usually refers to the joining of tributaries. The opposite to a tributary is a distributary ,
208-570: Is from the Old Norse lopt hús , meaning "houses with lofts". The Nidderdale Caves lie just north of the village. The River Nidd runs underground through the caves and emerges at Nidd Heads, just south of the village. The normally dry surface bed of the river passes the village to the west. Between 1907 and 1929 Lofthouse had a railway station, the public passenger terminus of the Nidd Valley Light Railway . The station
234-584: The Harrogate district of North Yorkshire , England about a mile south of Middlesmoor . It is the principal settlement in the civil parish of Fountains Earth . Lofthouse has a primary school, memorial village hall and public house, the Crown Hotel . The post office in the village closed in August 2014, and was replaced by a post office in the cafe at nearby How Stean Gorge , also now closed. The toponym
260-1174: The river and town of Neath (Welsh Nedd ) in South Wales and the town of Stratton in Cornwall (originally named Strat-Neth), and with many other rivers across Europe, such as the Nete in Belgium, the Nied in France, Neda in Galicia (NW Spain), the Nethe , Nidda and Nidder in Germany, and the Nida in Poland. Along the river valley can be found the Nidderdale Museum , which is located in Pateley Bridge, and features sections about
286-521: The River Ouse at Nun Monkton . The two most northerly reservoirs on the course of the river were built to provide water to the Bradford area in the early 1900s by way of the Nidd Aqueduct . As of 2017, they are maintained by Yorkshire Water . The reservoir takes its name from Angram, a settlement in the township of Stonebeck Up , submerged when the reservoir was built. Completed in 1919 with
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#1732765837675312-421: The direction the water current of the main stem is going. In a navigational context, if one were floating on a raft or other vessel in the main stream, this would be the side the tributary enters from as one floats past; alternately, if one were floating down the tributary, the main stream meets it on the opposite bank of the tributary. This information may be used to avoid turbulent water by moving towards
338-485: The first-order tributary being typically the least in size. For example, a second-order tributary would be the result of two or more first-order tributaries combining to form the second-order tributary. Another method is to list tributaries from mouth to source, in the form of a tree structure , stored as a tree data structure . Lofthouse, North Yorkshire Lofthouse is a small village in Nidderdale in
364-499: The gorge, the river meanders south-east through the town of Knaresborough , heading north and looping south again as it enters flatter terrain. Near Little Ribston it meanders south-easterly and easterly, crossing underneath the A1 and the A1(M) near the small village of Cowthorpe . The river continues meandering past Cattal north-easterly towards Moor Monkton , towards its junction with
390-451: The handedness is from the point of view of an observer facing upstream. For instance, Steer Creek has a left tributary which is called Right Fork Steer Creek. These naming conventions are reflective of the circumstances of a particular river's identification and charting: people living along the banks of a river, with a name known to them, may then float down the river in exploration, and each tributary joining it as they pass by appears as
416-469: The opposite bank before approaching the confluence. An early tributary is a tributary that joins the main stem river closer to its source than its mouth, that is, before the river's midpoint ; a late tributary joins the main stem further downstream, closer to its mouth than to its source, that is, after the midpoint. In the United States, where tributaries sometimes have the same name as
442-512: The reservoirs, flooding the caves in the valley. In such cases the river overflows into the normally dry river bed past Lofthouse through to Gouthwaite Reservoir . The head of the river is located on moorland and the river character is affected by the run-off levels from the three reservoirs. The upper valley is primarily millstone grit with fluvioglacial deposits . The overlying soil is prone to water-logging due to its slow permeability, being composed of loamy soils on top of clay with peat on
468-529: The river disappears underground into the sinkhole known as Manchester Hole. If Scar House reservoir overflows, water flows past Manchester Hole to Goyden Pot, another sinkhole. In severe floods, the river flows past Goyden Pot down the valley. The water sinking into the Nidderdale caves reappears at the rising Nidd Head to the south of the village of Lofthouse . Below Lofthouse the river is joined by How Stean Beck, and turns south-south-east towards Ramsgill before flowing into Gouthwaite Reservoir. Continuing on
494-666: The river into which they feed, they are called forks . These are typically designated by compass direction. For example, the American River in California receives flow from its North, Middle, and South forks. The Chicago River 's North Branch has the East, West, and Middle Fork; the South Branch has its South Fork, and used to have a West Fork as well (now filled in). Forks are sometimes designated as right or left. Here,
520-649: The river passes through the Nidd Gorge , Carboniferous ( Namurian ) and Upper Permian rock is exposed. The etymology of the name remains unknown but the name is either Celtic or Pre-Celtic (as with most rivers in Western Europe). A derivation from Celtic meaning brilliant or shining has been suggested (as in Old Irish níamda ), as has a link to the older Indo-European root *-nedi , simply meaning river. The Nidd likely shares this etymology with
546-442: The same heading, the first major settlement is reached at Pateley Bridge . Turning more south-easterly, it flows past Glasshouses and Summerbridge , where it turns south again past Dacre Banks . Passing by Darley , the river turns east before reaching Birstwith , where it flows south-east to Hampsthwaite . A series of large bends in the river take the flow north, east and then south, and east again, to enter Nidd Gorge . Below
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#1732765837675572-418: The smaller stream designated the little fork, the larger either retaining its name unmodified, or receives the designation big . Tributaries are sometimes listed starting with those nearest to the source of the river and ending with those nearest to the mouth of the river . The Strahler stream order examines the arrangement of tributaries in a hierarchy of first, second, third and higher orders, with
598-432: The streams are seen to diverge by the cardinal direction (north, south, east, or west) in which they proceed upstream, sometimes a third stream entering between two others is designated the middle fork; or the streams are distinguished by the relative height of one to the other, as one stream descending over a cataract into another becomes the upper fork, and the one it descends into, the lower ; or by relative volume:
624-501: The top layer. Around Lofthouse there are outcrops of Upper Yoredale limestone, which is more permeable than millstone grit and has created the Nidderdale Caves , where the river flows underground. Lower down on the flood plain, the nature of the underlying ground is Magnesian Limestone over alluvium and terrace drift deposits. On top of this is a combination of slowly permeable and well drained fine loam over clay. Where
650-542: The traditional agriculture, industries, religion, transport and costume of Nidderdale. Lower down the river is the town of Knaresborough , which is home to Knaresborough Castle and Knaresborough Museum. There are many way-marked walking routes throughout the river valley, including the Nidderdale Way , a 55-mile circular walk whose usual starting point is Ripley. Ordnance Survey Maps Tributary A tributary , or an affluent ,
676-626: Was designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1994. The Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust has a remit to conserve the ecological condition of the River Nidd from its headwaters to the Humber estuary. The Nidd rises in Nidderdale at Nidd Head Spring on the slopes of Great Whernside in the Yorkshire Dales . It flows east into Angram and Scar House reservoirs before turning south just downstream of Newhouses. In normal conditions
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