Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for DEE (The)

DEE (The), a river of Wales and Cheshire. It rises near Arran-Fowddy in Merioneth; and runs about 80 miles east-north-eastward, northward, and north-west-ward, past Bala, Corwen, Llangollen, Holt, Chester, and Flint, to the Irish sea. Its chief affluents are the Alwen, the Ciriog, the Clyweddog, and the Alyn. Great viaducts of the Shrewsbury railway and the Chester and Holyhead railway, and an aqueduct of the Ellesmere canal, cross it. High floods, from sudden rains or thaws, on the Welsh mountains, accumulate in it; and sometimes come down in prodigious force and volume, occasioning much damage. The ancient Britons held it in great veneration; the Romans called it Deva; Spenser styles it "silver clene;" and Drayton calls it an "ominous flood, " Its waters are noted for the fine flavour of their salmon. Its last reach, 14 miles long, is estuary, from 2 to 6 miles wide, with sandy bottom, and incommoding sand-banks. The navigation of it, from the upper part of the estuary to the city of Chester, over a distance of 8 miles, is an artificial cut, authorized by parliament in 1732, and completed in 1754. Reclamations of nearly 2, 500 acres of land were made from it, between 1763 and 1795; and further embankments, of considerable extent, have since been formed.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a river"   (ADL Feature Type: "rivers")
Administrative units: Cheshire AncC
Place names: DEE     |     DEE THE     |     THE DEE

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