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Industrial Rivers from the North Pennines

The Industrial Heritage of Rivers Tyne Wear & Tees originate in the Lead mining hills of the Pennines. Tynedale, Weardale and Teesdale are not part of the North Yorkshire Dales, but located in an area originally called Rheged and latterly known as Northumbria with Northumberland being the portion north of the Tyne.

The industrial Revolution which started to transform the world in the Nineteenth Century originated here in the North East of England, fueled by the Coal mining in Northumberland and Durham. The coal supplied the Heavy Industry of the Tyne, Wear & Tees Rivers and was also shipped out of the Tyne to London.

The exportation of the Coal from Northumberland and Durham with the Ore's mined in the North Pennines was supported by the Internationally renowned Shipbuilding Industry on all three rivers primarily on the Tyne & Wear.

The Steel fabrication Industry of Teesside sought the Ore from the North Pennines and Coal from the Yorkshire Mines to ensure their Worldwide dominance fabricating bridges for transportation around the globe such as the Tyne Bridge & Sydney Harbour Bridge. Most recently was the building of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank in Hong Kong during the 1980s.

The Steel fabrication Industry of Teesside sought the Ore from the North Pennines and Coal from the Yorkshire Mines to ensure their Worldwide dominance, hence it is referred to as the River of Steel.

Fabricating bridges for transportation around the globe such as the Tyne Bridge & Sydney Harbour Bridge. Most recently was the building of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank in Hong Kong during the 1980s

In a riverside pub near Ironbridge, a notice announces the formation of a River Severn Navigation Society, a pressure group of boat owners, local councils, and "conservationists" who hope to build new weirs on the river. The idea is to permit motor boats to proceed above the present navigation limit at Stourport, as far as Shrewsbury, and perhaps eventually even up to the original navigable limit of Pool Quay near Welshpool. Jackfield rapids would survive and be bypassed by some sort of land based link, with a weir above Ironbridge Gorge maintaining the flow at the price of flooding the innumerable smaller rapids higher up. The "conservationists" among them seem to want to recreate an industrial environment as a museum, and water companies and farmers want to increase abstraction. It is time for iGreens, canoeists and others who love rivers in their natural state, to fight this nonsense and recognise river weirs for the industrial pollutants they are.

They were once a necessary evil. We live at our present high standard partly because our forebears opened up the coal and iron mines that drove the industrial revolution by rendering rivers navigable. However, railways and roads superseded these waterways for industrial use long ago, and their weirs are no longer needed. Why do so many remain? Compare the Wye or the Severn above Bewdley, with the Trent and Thames. The difference is not chemicals but canalisation. Any other pollution like this would have been cleared away years ago, either blown up, or washed away in the winter floods. However, somehow the weirs not only remain, but are regularly maintained at taxpayers expense.

The reason is motor boating. Some people, not content with driving their cars up and down tarmac roads all week, like to drive motor launches up and down rivers at the weekends.