Douglas | |
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![]() River Douglas at Appley Bridge, West Lancashire | |
Location | |
Country | England |
Physical characteristics | |
Source | |
• location | Winter Hill |
Mouth | confluence with River Ribble |
• coordinates | 53°44′4.92″N2°51′18.26″W / 53.7347000°N 2.8550722°W |
Length | 56 km (35 mi) |
Basin features | |
Tributaries | |
• right | River Yarrow |
The River Douglas, also known as the River Asland or Astland, [1] flows through parts of Lancashire and Greater Manchester in North West England. It is a tributary of the River Ribble and has several tributaries, the major ones being the River Tawd and the River Yarrow.
In 1720, an Act of Parliament authorized Thomas Steers and William Squire to make the River Douglas navigable to small ships between Wigan and its mouth. Despite financial irregularities, the Douglas Navigation was not completed until 1742. By 1783, it had been replaced by the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, [2] and the river reverted to its natural state. Although the remnants of several locks are still visible between Parbold and Gathurst. [3] The Rufford Branch of the canal joins the river at Tarleton. The river rises on Winter Hill in the West Pennine Moors, and flows for 35 miles (56 km) through several towns before reaching the Ribble estuary near Tarleton, with the last 10 miles (16 km) being tidal. In 1892, the Douglas was diverted in Wigan to allow the construction of Wigan Central railway station.
The Douglas is derived from the Brittonic elements dūβ-, meaning "black", [4] and *glẹ:ss, "stream, rivulet, watercourse" (Welsh du-glais). [4] This etymology is shared by like-named rivers in The Old North, [4] such as the Douglas Water in Scotland. [4]
The River Douglas rises at Douglas Springs, a series of springs on Rivington Moor close to the 1,440-foot (440 m) contour close to the summit of Winter Hill. The River Yarrow, one of its major tributaries, rises at springs less than a mile (1.6 km) to the north-west. Nearby are Anglezarke Reservoir, Upper Rivington Reservoir, and Lower Rivington Reservoir, which are part of the Rivington Chain, a network of reservoirs built to supply the drinking water needs of Liverpool. This reservoirs alter the natural drainage patterns of both rivers. [5] [6]
The Douglas descends rapidly, dropping below the 430-foot (130 m) contour before flowing into the Lower Rivington Reservoir, just north of Horwich. Below the dam, the river's flow is maintained by compensation water released from the reservoir, marking the county boundary between Greater Manchester and Lancashire. The river is crossed by the M61 motorway near Rivington services, and then turns to the north-west to reach the southern edge of Adlington. It flows in a generally southwesterly direction and is crossed by the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, [6] via a grade II listed aqueduct designed by John Rennie in the 1790s. The aqueduct has a round arch and is constructed of rock-faced stone. [7] The river then bypasses Worthington Lakes, three reservoirs built in the 1860s to provide drinking water for Wigan, and now managed as a country park by United Utilities. [8] The river ceases to form the county boundary just before the lakes and re-emerges from a tunnel below the reservoir dam, passing east of Standish. It continues southwards to Wigan, where it flows through a long culvert under the railway near Wigan North Western station, is crossed again by the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, and heads northwest, closely paralleling the canal. [6]
It is crossed by the M6 motorway and the Manchester-Southport line near Gathurst station, passes by the village of Appley Bridge, and at Parbold the canal crosses for the third time, as the river turns to the north and north-west. [6] The aqueduct was designed by John Longbotham, has a semi-elliptical arch, and dates from 1791 to 1792. [9] The river drops below the 33-foot (10 m) contour at Parbold, and continues across open countryside where it is joined by the River Tawd, flowing north from Skelmersdale, becoming tidal before it reaches the village of Rufford. White Bridge at Rufford is a grade II listed structure with three spans, constructed of squared sandstone. It carries the B5246 Station Road over the river, and dates from the time of the construction of the Douglas Navigation, between 1720 and 1742. [10] Below the bridge, the channel is rather straighter. [6] Until 1805, the river was joined by the Rufford Branch of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Sollom Lock, but the lock was abandoned and a new one built further downstream at Tarleton. In order to do this, a new channel was created for the river further to the east, and the original channel was reused by the canal. [11] On the new section, Great Hanging Bridge is similar to White bridge, both in date and in its three arches, and it carries the A581 road. Below it, the river is joined by the River Yarrow, which has taken a more direct route from its source to this point. [6] At Tarleton, another three-span bridge carries the A59 road over the river. It is built from rock-faced sandstone blocks, and the keystone on the southern side indicates it was constructed in 1821. The north side is of red sandstone, with indications that it might once have been part of a narrower bridge. [12] After its junction with the canal at Tarleton Lock, the final 4 miles (6.4 km) of the river to its junction with the River Ribble, here also known as the River Asland, is used by boat traffic transferring from the Leeds and Liverpool Canal to the Lancaster Canal since the opening of the Ribble Link in 2002. [13]
The reservoirs of the Rivington Chain capture and store run-off from Winter Hill and Rivington Moor, much of which is used to provide a public water supply to areas of Lancashire and Greater Manchester. However, as a result of the original statutes that allowed them to be built, the water company is required to maintain some flow in the river below the reservoirs, and this compensation flow provides a fairly steady baseline flow in the river throughout the year. It is only normally exceeded if the reservoirs become full. [14] On the upper reaches of the Douglas, the river bed is relatively steep, and consequently the river level can change quickly as a result of rainfall. As the river progresses to the west, the gradient lessens, and level changes occur more slowly. [5]
There are two locations on the river where water is abstracted to maintain levels in the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. On many sections of the river, flows are augmented by the discharge from sewage treatment works. [14] Major treatment works are located at Horwich on the upper river, at Wigan Wastewater Treatment works in Lathom on the lower section, and at Skelmersdale on the River Tawd. [15] Upgrades to the Wigan and Skelmersdale Treatment Works have been carried out, to improve the quality of the final effluent before discharge into the river system, while in Wigan, the sewage system has been improved, to reduce the amount of raw sewage discharged into the river by combined sewer overflows. In Standish, the pumping station at Chorley Road has been upgraded to reduce its impact on the river, while in Horwich, there was an ongoing scheme in 2014 in which volunteers walked the river to identify pollution points, which were then followed up by officers from the Environment Agency. Run-off of nutrients and other pollutants from agricultural land has also been addressed through the Catchment Sensitive Farming project, run jointly by Natural England, the Environment Agency and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. [15] Another joint initiative between the Environment Agency and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has seen sea defences improved and 370 acres (150 ha) of saltmarsh created as part of the Hesketh Outmarsh Coastal Realignment project. [16]
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The Environment Agency measure the 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 invertebrates, angiosperms and fish, and chemical status, which compares the concentrations of various chemicals against known safe concentrations. Chemical status is rated good or fail. [17]
The water quality of the River Douglas system was as follows in 2016. The section marked Ribble covers the tidal River Ribble and the lower 4 miles (6.4 km) of tidal River Douglas. Reasons for the quality being less than good include sewage discharge for most of the river, together with physical modification of the channel and poor nutrient management of agricultural land on the lower sections.
Section | Ecological Status | Chemical Status | Overall Status | Length | Catchment | Channel |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Douglas - Upper [18] | Moderate | Good | Moderate | 8.8 miles (14.2 km) | 17.78 square miles (46.0 km2) | heavily modified |
Buckhow (Hic Bibbi) Brook [19] | Moderate | Good | Moderate | 5.9 miles (9.5 km) | 3.64 square miles (9.4 km2) | heavily modified |
Douglas - Mid [20] | Moderate | Good | Moderate | 5.8 miles (9.3 km) | 6.65 square miles (17.2 km2) | heavily modified |
Douglas - Lower [21] | Moderate | Good | Moderate | 15.3 miles (24.6 km) | 28.85 square miles (74.7 km2) | heavily modified |
Ribble [22] | Bad | Good | Bad | heavily modified |
The Lancaster Canal is a canal in North West England, originally planned to run from Westhoughton in Lancashire to Kendal in south Cumbria. The section around the crossing of the River Ribble was never completed, and much of the southern end leased to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, of which it is now generally considered part.
The Leeds and Liverpool Canal is a canal in Northern England, linking the cities of Leeds and Liverpool.
Parbold is a village and civil parish in West Lancashire, England.
West Lancashire is a local government district with borough status in Lancashire, England. The council is based in Ormskirk, and the largest town is Skelmersdale. The district borders Fylde to the north, over the Ribble Estuary; South Ribble, Chorley, and Wigan to the east; St Helens and Knowsley to the south; and Sefton to the south and west.
The River Ribble runs through North Yorkshire and Lancashire in Northern England. It starts close to the Ribblehead Viaduct in North Yorkshire, and is one of the few that start in the Yorkshire Dales and flow westwards towards the Irish Sea.
West Lancashire is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. Following the resignation of Labour MP Rosie Cooper on 30 November 2022, the seat was won by the party's candidate Ashley Dalton in the by-election held on 9 February 2023, who would again win this seat in the general election in July 2024.
The Millennium Ribble Link is a linear water park and new navigation which links the once-isolated Lancaster Canal in Lancashire, England to the River Ribble. The Lancaster Canal was never connected to the rest of the English waterways network, because the planned aqueduct over the River Ribble was never built. Instead, a tramway connected the southern and northern parts of the canal. An idea for a connecting link following the course of the Savick Brook was proposed in 1979, and the Ribble Link Trust campaigned for twenty years to see it built. The turn of the Millennium, and the funds available from the Millennium Commission for projects to mark the event was the catalyst for the project to be implemented, and although completion was delayed, the navigation opened in July 2002.
The River Tawd flows through Skelmersdale and Lathom in West Lancashire.
Tarleton is a village and civil parish in the West Lancashire district of Lancashire, England. It is situated approximately 19 miles (31 km) north-east of Liverpool and 9 miles (14 km) south-west of Preston. The parish includes the village of Mere Brow and the hamlets of Sollom and Holmes, and is an agricultural area. It had a population of 5,959 at the 2021 Census. Tarleton village, Holmes, and the villages of Hesketh Bank and Becconsall to the north form a single built-up area with a population of 8,755.
Appley Bridge is a village in West Lancashire, England. It straddles the borders of Greater Manchester and Lancashire, England. It is located off Junction 27 of the M6 motorway and is nestled in the Douglas Valley alongside the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.
Bispham Green is a village in the West Lancashire district of Lancashire, England. It is 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Mawdesley and less than 1 mile (1.6 km) north of Parbold.
The River Yarrow is in Lancashire, with its source at an area called Will Narr at Hordern Stoops, along Spitlers Edge - the Chorley/Blackburn boundary - on the West Pennine Moors. The river feeds the Yarrow Reservoir, which in turn feeds the Anglezarke and Upper and Lower Rivington Reservoirs. Upon leaving the reservoirs via a pumping station, the river passes through an area that was formerly known as Abyssinia. Currently, this area is within the boundaries of Heath Charnock and Limbrick, but the original name was given because it was a route frequented by coal miners, and the workers were said to look like natives of Abyssinia : until the mid 20th century it was usual for miners to return from work covered in coal dust.
Lower Rivington Reservoir is at the end of the Rivington chain of reservoirs in Lancashire, England, with Upper Rivington Reservoir to the north, and Rivington Water Treatment Works to the south. The Rivington chain primarily supplies 70,000 households in the Wigan area. The chain was built to supply Liverpool.
The Douglas Navigation was a canalised section of the River Douglas or Asland, in Lancashire, England, running from its confluence with the River Ribble to Wigan. It was authorised in 1720, and some work was carried out, but the undertakers lost most of the share money speculating on the South Sea Bubble. Alexander Leigh attempted to revive it eleven years later, and opened it progressively between 1738 and 1742. Leigh began work on a parallel canal called Leigh's Cut to improve the passage from Newburgh to Gathurst, but progress was slow and it was unfinished in 1771.
The River Lostock is a river in Lancashire, England.
Chorley Interchange is a bus station in Chorley, England.
Hesketh Bank railway station was a railway station on the West Lancashire Railway (WLR) in North West England, which served the village of Hesketh Bank. The station, originally known as 'Hesketh Bank and Tarleton', opened on 20 February 1878 and was located on the western bank of the River Douglas near a dock where the WLR operated a steamship across the River Ribble to Lytham St Annes. By 1882 the station was referred to as 'Hesketh for Tarleton', but by 1895 the station appears to have been formally renamed to just 'Hesketh Bank'.
Mawdesley is a village and civil parish in Lancashire, England, which had a population of 1,702 as per the 2011 Census.
The Nidd Aqueduct is an aqueduct or man-made watercourse in North Yorkshire, England. It feeds water from Angram and Scar House reservoirs in upper Nidderdale, North Yorkshire 32 mi (51 km) to Bradford in West Yorkshire. The aqueduct supplies 21,000,000 imp gal (95,000 m3) of water per day to Chellow Heights water treatment works. The aqueduct and the reservoirs it connects to are all maintained by Yorkshire Water.