Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for TRENT (The)

TRENT (The), a river of Stafford, Derby, Leicester, Notts, and Lincoln. It was known anciently as Trivona or Treonta. It ranks, in regard to length of course, the third river of England; and it drains a basin of about 4,000 square miles. It rises on Biddulph moor, on the N border of Stafford, at an elevation of about 500 feet above sea-level, and at a distance of about 154 miles, along its bed, to the sea; it goes southward, past Stoke and Stone, to Shugborough, and there receives the Sow; it goes thence southeastward, past Rugeley, to Kings-Bromley, and there receives the Blythe; it proceeds thence east-by-southward, past Alrewas, to the boundary with Derby, and there receives the Tame and the Mees; it goes north-north-eastward, along the boundary between Stafford and Derby, past Burton-upon-Trent, to Newton-Solney, and there receives the Dove; it intersects the S wing of Derby eastward, past Barrow-upon-Trent, to the neighbourhood of Aston-upon-Trent; it then divides Derby from Leicester east-north-eastward, past Shardlow and Sawley, to the neighbourhood of Attenborough, and receives, in that run, the Derwent, the Soar, and the Erewash; it proceeds within Notts north-eastward to Nottingham, and there receives the Lene; it then goes through Notts eastward, north-eastward, and north-by-eastward, past Shelford, Hoveringham, East Stoke, Newark, and Carlton-on-Trent, to the boundary with Lincoln near Dunham, and receives, in that run, the Dover, the Greet, and the Devon; it divides Notts from Lincoln northward, past Torksey, Littleborough, and Gainsborough, to West Stockwith, and there receives the Idle; it proceeds within Lincoln northward, past Wildsworth, Burringham, and Amcotts, separating the Isle of Axholme from the main body of Lincoln; and it unites with the Ouse at an impingement of Yorkshire, near Alkborough, to form the Humber. It is tidal to Gainsborough, and navigable for barges to Burton-upon-Trent; it is swept, in its tidal reaches, by a bore, similar to that of the rivers entering the Solway frith and the Bristol channel; and it is extensively used, in these reaches, for the kind of georgical improvement called warping.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a river"   (ADL Feature Type: "rivers")
Administrative units: Derbyshire AncC       Leicestershire AncC       Lincolnshire AncC       Nottinghamshire AncC       Staffordshire AncC
Place names: THE TRENT     |     TRENT     |     TRENT THE

Pages for linked administrative units may contain historical statistics and information on boundaries.