Talk:River Mersey

Mergers

I don't think the Mersey Estuary and Runcorn Gap articles are necessary: they both have a very small amount of content which could be described in context here. If there are no reasonable objections, I'll merge them. --RFBailey 22:33, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

It's been over a week, and no-one has objected, so I've carried out the merge. I've also removed the link to the Toxteth riots: the implication that these were related to water quality seems rather tenuous to me. --RFBailey 20:02, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

thisThe River Mersey is a river in North West England. It is 70 miles (112 km) long, stretching from Stockport, Greater Manchester, and ending at Liverpool Bay, Merseyside. For centuries, it formed part of the ancient county divide between Lancashire and Cheshire

howdy brainy science dudes !!! we are doin a crap science project n we need help on researchin the river mersey !!!!!

Environment

the mersey river is dirty and bad for the enviroment and is suronded by factorys that polute it.

You might be suprised to learn that in fact the mersey river is the environment

-- the Mersey is not that polluted in Stockport, there are brown trout in it RobChafer 20:34, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Does anybody have any figures on how the water quality is improving?. I can remember in the 60's the river used to stink of oil, and on windy days huge balls of detergent foam would chase people up Bridge Street in Warrington, but now the river looks quite clean, just rather 'silty'. I suppose it is 'flushing' the pollution out of itself with time? ChrisRed (talk) 14:21, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

http://www.merseybasin.org.uk/ should have some stuff. Mr Stephen (talk) 15:24, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

There's a graph or two in doi:10.1016/S0048-9697(03)00094-9. Mr Stephen (talk) 07:57, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Infobox

The infobox says that the source elevation needs input. The Goyt page gives its mouth elevation as 40m, is that good enough (it has a ref although the page link does not work)?RobChafer 20:35, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Ancient course of the Mersey

I removed from the article this image -File:River.Mersey.ancient.course.jpg, captioned as "The modern and ancient course of the River Mersey", a statement which was unreferenced and, I believe, untrue. The theory that, in Roman times, the Mersey flowed through the "Backford Gap" (now occupied by the Shropshire Union Canal) was put forward by a geographer called William Ashton around 1909. This was based on supposed local traditions; the fact that the Mersey was not marked on Ptolemy's map of the world; assertions that a Roman bridge at Wallasey Pool was found below the current sea level; evidence for major flooding in parts of Cheshire around the 6th century; and evidence of silts and clay in the Backford Gap (aka Broxton Valley). However, Ashton's theory is, according to Stephen Roberts, A History of Wirral, 2002, not accepted now. Research in the 1970s by Ray Kenna and others concluded that "There is no evidence for the Mersey flowing into the Dee through the Broxton Valley in historic times or during the last 10,000 years... [However] during the Roman period, a navigable entrance may not have been in existence due to the existence of sand bars, spits and banks formed from glacial and periglacial sediment already in Liverpool Bay." The Backford Gap, it is now thought, was formed when the Mersey entrance was blocked, either by a glacial moraine or by ice itself in prehistoric times, and melt waters flowed into the Dee. Later, either the ice melted or the moraines were eroded by the sea. Personally I'd be happy for reference to be made to the Ashton theory in the article, so long as it is made clear that (according to the information I have) it is no longer accepted as true. Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:58, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with your actions here. I see the editor who added the image has added a large number of other images of an unverified nature to other articles. I did think it an unwise addition as it stands, for reasons you give, and you beat me to it in your actions!  DDStretch  (talk) 20:15, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Well and good, Ghmyrtle, and your suspicions are on-target - the image is indeed from Ashton's book. If the information has been superceded, I see no good purpose in including a list of discredited theories in this or other articles. By the way, I'm in the habit of referencing all images (including the ones that DDStretch has noticed) - if you click on the image, you will see that the url to the book is provided, as is the title, author, date, etc; I do sometimes forget to include the page number, not intentionally. And in fact, one of my own pet peeves is the number of unsourced and dubious maps that populate wikipedia articles - they imply credibility that often does not exist, particularly regarding "popular history" and "interesting theories". Regards, Notuncurious (talk) 22:52, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

River Mersey Lifeboat Race

Does anyone have any info on this subject. As far as I can make out there may have only ever been one, sometime in the 1890's and the winning crew were awarded silver medals. Tony Jones —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingo2000 (talk • contribs) 00:04, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Geography

I notice that seaforth dock is placed as being upstream of the narrow gap between liverpool and birkenhead. Seaforth is downstream of that location and could almost be said to be in liverpool bay, but in anycase is not upstream of the pier head. I would suggest the article is adjusted to show this. Tim (talk) 08:35, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Long term effects of Sewage tipping in the Mersey

While most people are aware of the problem of untreated human sewage in the River Mersey, a study was undertaken in the 1980s to determine the long term effect of the large scale dumping of untreated human waste by slurry boats into the Liverpool Bay area. A team of Divers spent a number of days diving to the sea bed and taking samples and photographs etc from the sea bed below sewage dumping ereas. They found that the sea bed samples they brought up from the Bay had a strong smell unlike normal sea bed samples from elsewhere. They noted that animals such as crabs live in the area used to dump slurry boat cargoes. The survey was taken in response to a New Scientist study finding the Mersey to be one of the most polluted rivers in Europe, with tons of raw sewage floating in the river.Johnwrd (talk) 22:01, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Please add map or diagram

This article could be much improved with the addition of an outline map with major tributaries labeled, or at least the addition of a drainage area depiction (see article on River Trent for an example). Without this is, it is very difficult to follow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.51.185.47 (talk) 05:29, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

No map?

How is it that an article about a river has no map? Like building a car and forgetting to add the steering wheel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.215.12.158 (talk) 14:08, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Tributaries and Confluences

In terms of the Mersey's tributaries, does this include the entire catchment or just those that directly enter the Mersey? I am asking because in the tributaries section, there are some rivers/brooks that enter a tributary of the Mersey as oppose to directly entering it as if the section is listing all Mersey basin catchment rivers. If this is so, I would like to add more such as the Etherow and the Roch. Sl3nderman3006 (talk) 11:51, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

I should also add that if I don't get any objections within a week then I will add them because i think it's better to list the catchment rivers as oppose to just the direct tributaries. Sl3nderman3006 (talk) 11:54, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

That's fine, but you should indent as has already been done for the Birket, thus:

• The Birket
  • River Fender
    • Prenton Brook
  • Arrowe Brook
    • Greasby Brook
      • Newton Brook

Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:23, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

I saw that yes, that's I why I think others should be listed as well. Sl3nderman3006 (talk) 11:44, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

OK, I have added a few now, I have also taken those inactive/broken links off. Sl3nderman3006 (talk) 15:13, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Source and length

It is not presently made clear in the article that the distance given in the infobox is not that for the Mersey as described in the lede which defines the start at the confluence of the Goyt and Tame. I have myself painstakingly measured the length of the various watercourses which go to form the Mersey. The length of the river named as the Mersey from the Goyt/Tame confluence downstream to the confluence with the Manchester Ship Canal (which has subsumed the Irwell) is 30.1km or 18.7 miles. From that point to where the old course of the Mersey splits from the Ship Canal is 6.6km or 4.1miles. From there to Runcorn Gap (road bridge) past Warrington is a further 25.7km or 16 miles via the old course of the river (whilst it is 28.3km or 17.6 miles via the Ship Canal). The estuary continues for about another 32km / 19.9 miles to the county limit at Bootle where the Mersey empties into Liverpool Bay. This last section can reasonably be measured in different ways to give longer and shorter figures than this. Add all these to get 94.4km or 58.7 miles. This is of course original research on my part so cannot be included in the article but it does at least give an idea of what a true figure should look like if and when an editor finds a suitable reference out there! cheers Geopersona (talk) 18:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I suggest that we should check what "reliable" sources say, and then use the one that is closest to the truth. Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:54, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Indeed! It's interesting to note in passing that taking the catchment as a whole, it is water originating at the source of its tributary, the Irwell that has furthest to travel (and that's after the various straightenings of that river for both navigation and flood alleviation from the 1890's through to the 1970s) - an extra 7.5km in all from Irwell Spring to Liverpool Bay. Geopersona (talk) 19:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I have replaced the unreferenced figures with one sourced from the book 'Headwaters'. Geopersona (talk) 08:53, 12 August 2022 (UTC)