The River Darwen begins on the South Pennine Moors. It then flows through a valley of Carboniferous rocks, including limestone, Millstone Grit, shales and coal, to meet the River Ribble in Preston. The River Darwen has one of the most impressive gorges in Lancashire, known as Hoghton Bottoms. The bedrock is largely covered by glacial …
Work experience By Dan McGibbon As a third year Geography student at university,gaining work experience has become a must for progressing from a student to someone who is in full time work. The Ribble Rivers Trust was kind enough to offer me some work experience and it’s somewhere I highly recommend if considering for a …
Work experience; helping students relate their learning to real world scenarios Read More »
We were delighted to have seen Ribble Rivers Trust featured on this week’s The One Show, talking about water quality testing and solutions to some of the most common pollution problems with our rivers. Shown on Monday 4th March 2019, the programme detailed how Ribble Rivers Trust had found issues with high levels of phosphates …
UPDATE: Our Christmas tree collection scheme has been a huge success this year with hundreds of Christmas trees collected. These trees will be used in our brash bundling work, where they will provide support and stability to eroding river banks, helping us to limit river erosion and build river banks back up. We’d like to …
World Toilet Day is a UN initiative taking place on Sunday 19th November with the aim to improve global sanitation. Although the majority of the North West waste water is safely treated through the United Utilities network risks to local rivers and seas are still prevalent through privately maintained waste water treatment works. The Call of …
Call of Nature campaign appeals for septic tank maintenance checks on World Toilet Day Read More »
Hundreds of bags of dog poo have been found on the UK’s beaches according to the Marine Conservations Society’s 2016 research; with 792 bags recorded at 364 beaches by volunteers over the Great British Beach Clean weekend in September last year. However these numbers don’t show the full scale of the problem; beach clean volunteers …
Only leave paw prints and foot prints in the sand… Read More »
Throughout this summer’s electrofishing season, we’ve been giving people the chance to come along and help us with our surveys. Like many of the activities that the Trust take part in electrofishing captures the attention of all our audiences, from fishermen to conservationists to students. Naturally the opportunity to take part in this exciting task …
If you’re planning on visiting one of the UK’s hundreds of designated bathing water beaches this year you might be shocked to find a wet wipe buried in the sand next to your picnic spot. It’s unlikely that these wipes have been left here as litter; millions of wipes are discarded or wrongly flushed down …
By Kat Rowland: GIS Intern As a Geography student who loves rivers and GIS (and is doing her dissertation on both), the Rivers Trust was the perfect place for me to do a summer internship! Staying at the Slaidburn Youth Hostel, I worked in the Clitheroe office for three weeks. I immediately realised that the Trust …
On Saturday 22nd July, nine fantastic volunteers braved the pouring rain to help Ribble Rivers Trust in their annual battle with the Himalayan balsam growing along Wigglesworth Beck. The ‘Balsam Bash’, as it’s known, involved pulling up the Himalayan balsam, to prevent it from setting seed and spreading further along the beck and throughout the …
The Ribble Life Together project is officially underway! Last week’s project launch event at Brockholes Nature Reserve was a huge success! The event celebrated securing £1.6 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund with a fun-filled, activity packed day which was supported by catchment partners and staff. We’ve been developing the Ribble Life Together project for …
Sat with a year 6 group watching sand martins return to the river’s eroded bank, swooping around picking freshly hatched riverflies from the air. One girl leans to her friend to say “I could watch these all day. I’m going to come down here at the weekend.” At that moment, a huge grin spread across …
By Mike Forty, Project Officer. Restoring connectivity in rivers One of the big challenges we face in restoring freshwater ecosystems is re-connecting disjointed sections of streams which have been isolated by construction of in-stream structures. These structures can have profound effects on streams, acting as a barrier reducing, delaying, or altogether stopping fish or …
Soon after flowing under Mitton Bridge, the River Ribble grows considerably where it is joined by the Rivers Hodder and Calder. The ‘Big Ribble’ continues through fertile pastoral land with a large amount of dairy farming and becomes tidal in Preston, Lancashire’s administrative centre. The Ribble Estuary flows past the fertile Fylde plain on its …
The Upper Ribble catchment includes the source of the River Ribble at the confluence of Gayle Beck and Cam Beck near the famous viaduct at Ribblehead, in the shadow of the Yorkshire Dales three peaks in the National Park area above Horton-in-Ribblesdale. This area is lightly populated and the main use of land is for …
The Hodder catchment includes some of the most attractive landscapes within the Ribble catchment. The whole area is within the designated Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the uplands are in the Bowland Fells SSSI. The catchment has a highly valued fishery and is popular with anglers. Stocks Reservoir and other upland …
The Calder catchment includes the main River Calder which originates from the moorlands surrounding Nelson, Burnley, Colne and Accrington, before joining the Ribble below Whalley. All the tributaries that flow into the River Calder such as Pendle Water, Colne Water and Hyndburn Brook are also in this area. Historically this area was heavily industrialised (mill …
