Most of the river's catchment lies on the western flank of the Pennines. The named river starts as compensation flow (that is, a guaranteed minimum discharge[3]) from Readycon Dean Reservoir in the moors above Denshaw. The source is a little further north, just over the county border in West Yorkshire, close to the Pennine Way. The highest point of the catchment is Greater Manchester's highest point at Black Chew Head.
The 19th-century industrial concentrations in the above-named urban areas resulted in the Tame being a much polluted waterway. As well as industrial pollution from the dyes and bleaches used in textile mills, effluent from specialised paper-making cigarette papers, engineering effluents, including base metal washings from battery manufacture, phenols from the huge coal-gas plant in Denton, rain-wash from roads and abandoned coal spoil heaps there was also the sewage effluent from the surrounding population. Up to two-thirds of the river's flow at its confluence with the Goyt had passed through a sewage works. The anti-pollution efforts of the last thirty years of the 20th century have resulted in the positive fauna distributions listed below.
The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology measures the flow at two points for the National River Flow Archive, at Portwood weir (Stockport) and at Broomstairs weir (Denton). Portwood weir is 1¼ miles above the confluence with the Mersey and contains the great majority of the final flow (with the exception of waste water from a concrete facility).[4]
Boundary line
The river has been a border from the earliest times between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia.[5] For its course after the Division Bridge in Mossley the river marks much of the historical boundary dividing Cheshire and Lancashire.
The name Tame is attached to rivers across the UK in several forms, including Thames, Thame, Taff, and Tamar, alongside two other instances of Tame.[6][7] The name is Celtic in origin, but the meaning is uncertain.[8][9]Dark river or dark one has been suggested,[10][11] but Ekwall[8] finds it unlikely; Mills suggests it may simply mean river (c.f. Avon, Humber, Tyne).[7] The names of the Mersey's co-tributaries Etherow and Goyt are equally ancient and mysterious.[8] Mersey is an Old English name (i.e. more recent) derived from "river at the boundary". The earlier name is lost: Dodgson suggests that Tame may have been the name for the whole of the Mersey.[9]The Metropolitan Borough of Tameside is named after the river. While it flows through the borough, the river neither rises nor finishes inside its boundaries; however, most of the built-up area alongside the river is in Tameside.
Fauna
The fish species present vary along the river's length. The lower reaches (near Reddish Vale Country Park) are home to coarse fish such as gudgeon (Gobio gobio), chub (Leuciscus cephalus), and roach (Rutilus rutilus); pike (Esox lucius) and perch (Perca fluviatilis) are also present. The upper reaches (above Ashton) support brown trout (Salmo trutta) and smaller numbers of some coarse fish. The populations are self-sustaining. Migratory fish such as Atlantic salmon and sea trout cannot navigate the river as the weir at Reddish Vale is too tall and has no fish pass.[12] Furthermore,
Carr Brook (from its source to the Tame)
Diggle Brook (from Diggle Reservoir to the Tame)
Hull Brook (Head of Lower Castleshaw Reservoir to the Tame)
Swineshaw Brook (from the Head of Swineshaw Reservoir to the Tame)
and the Tame (from the Head of Readycon Dean Reservoir to foot of New Years Bridge Reservoir)
are all declared as salmonid waters by statute, and as such have set physical and chemical water quality objectives.[13][14]
^Boyce, D (August 2005). "Mersey and Bollin Catchment abstraction management strategy" (PDF). Environment Agency North West, Warrington. p. 5. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 July 2012. Retrieved 13 March 2007.
^Boyce, D (March 2004). "The Tame, Goyt and Etherow catchment abstraction management strategy" (PDF). Environment Agency, Warrington. p. 6. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 July 2012. Retrieved 13 March 2007.
^"69027 - Tame at Portwood". The National River Flow Archive. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. Archived from the original on 27 October 2007. Retrieved 8 January 2008.
^Oliver, G.J (2008). "Tameside-Mottram history". Tameside Family Histories. Retrieved 28 October 2011.
^Ekwall, Bror Oscar Eilert (1922). The Place-Names of Lancashire. Publications of the University of Manchester, English series, number 11. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
^ a bMills, A D (1998). A dictionary of English place-names. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280074-4.
^ a b cEkwall, Eilert (1928). English river names. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
^ a bDodgson, J McN (1966). The place-names of Cheshire, part 1. Cambridge University Press.
^Ekwall, Bror Oscar Eilert (1947). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place Names. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
^Potter, Simeon M A (1955). Cheshire Place-Names (Reprinted from the Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire). London: International University Booksellers.
^"River Tame fish survey". Environment Agency. 8 December 2004. Archived from the original on 25 February 2006. Retrieved 7 January 2008.
^"Freshwater Fish Directive". DEFRA. 13 January 2004. Archived from the original on 21 November 2008. Retrieved 8 January 2008.
^"Schedule 2 Freshwaters in England and Wales to which Classification SW applies" (PDF). DEFRA. July 1998. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 June 2007. Retrieved 8 January 2008.
^"Report on update of sites of biological importance". Oldham MBC. 15 October 2007. Archived from the original (Word document) on 14 October 2011. Retrieved 20 January 2008.
^"Fourth Otter Survey of England 2000–2002" (PDF). Environment Agency. 2002. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 December 2007. Retrieved 4 February 2008.
^Hurley, Rachel; Woodward, Jamie; Rothwell, James J. (April 2018). "Microplastic contamination of river beds significantly reduced by catchment-wide flooding". Nature Geoscience. 11 (4): 251–257. Bibcode:2018NatGe..11..251H. doi:10.1038/s41561-018-0080-1.
Bibliography
Carter, Charles Frederick, ed. (1962). Manchester and its region : a survey prepared for the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held in Manchester August 29 to September 5, 1962. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Arrowsmith, Peter (1997). Stockport : a history. Stockport: Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council. ISBN 0-905164-99-7.
Holden, Roger N. (1998). Stott & Sons : architects of the Lancashire cotton mill. Lancaster: Carnegie. ISBN 1-85936-047-5.
Williams, Mike; D A Farnie (1992). Cotton mills in Greater Manchester. Preston: Carnegie. ISBN 0-948789-69-7.
Greater Manchester Council (1981). Tame Valley : report of survey and issues. Greater Manchester Council.
External links
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