River Devon
The River Devon looking downstream from Hawton bridge
Location
Country	England
Physical characteristics
Source
• location	Several springs nearEastwell, Leicestershire
• elevation	490 feet (150 m)
Mouth
• location	River Trent,Newark-on-Trent
• elevation	50 feet (15 m)
Basin features
Tributaries
• left	River Smite

v t e River Devon
Legend
River Trent Marina B6166 bridge, Newark Queen's Sconce Middle Beck Car Dyke Devon Bridge, Hawton River Smite Winter Beck railway bridge (dis) railway bridge railway bridge (dis) Devon Lane ford Rectory Lane, Bottesford Grantham Road, Bottesford Railway bridge A52 bridges Muston railway bridge (dis) Grantham Canal Belvoir Lower Lake Belvoir Upper Lake Frog Hollow The Carrier (to canal) Knipton Reservoir Croxton Park lakes Eaton Eastwell source

TheRiver Devon/ˈdiːvən/ is atributary of theRiver Trent, which rises inLeicestershire and joins the Trent atNewark inNottinghamshire, England. In its upper reaches, it supplies Knipton Reservoir, which was built to supply water to theGrantham Canal, and Belvoir Lakes, designed byCapability Brown. It passes under the Grantham Canal, and then through Bottesford, where it is spanned by five railway bridges, only one of which is still used for its original purpose. On the outskirts of Newark, it passes by twoCivil War structures, and just before it joins the Trent it becomes navigable, with a marina located on the west bank. Its name is pronounced "Deevon",not as spelt.^[1]

The river has a catchment of 109.8 square miles (284 km²) and had an average flow of 29.8 milliongallons (135.6 Megalitres) per day, measured at the gauging station in Cotham, near the mouth. However, the gauging station was closed in 1978, due to doubts about the reliability of its measurements, and there is currently no gauging station on the river. The catchment receives 23.28 inches (591 mm) of rainfall in an average year.^[2]

The river rises as a series of springs and streams near the villages ofEastwell, Bottesford (Leics)Eaton in north-east Leicestershire, close to the 490-foot (150 m) contour, and flows generally northwards. Passing close to Branston, it flows intoKnipton reservoir, built in the 1790s to supply theGrantham Canal.^[3] The surface area of the reservoir is 52 acres (21 ha), and it feeds the canal through a channel, calledThe Carrier, which has open sections and runs through a tunnel for about 1 mile (1.6 km).^[4]In 2006,British Waterways completed a refurbishment programme on the dam and spillway which cost £170,000.^[5]The village of Knipton is a little further to the north, on the eastern bank of the river. An unnamed tributary flows through the village to join the river, after which it enters woodland, where it is joined by a stream flowing eastwards from a small lake called Frog Hollow. Belvoir upper lake and Belvoir lower lake come next, each covering 12 acres (4.9 ha) and created by the landscape architectCapability Brown in the grounds of theBelvoir Castle estate. They are used forcoarse fishing.^[6] Between them, an early 19th-century bridge with five arches and long retaining walls, built from ironstone and limestone, acts as a weir.^[7] After the lakes, the river passes to the east ofWoolsthorpe-by-Belvoir and the hamlet of Stenwith, to flow under the Grantham Canal in a conduit. By this time it is below the 160-foot (49 m) contour. The county border between Leicestershire and Lincolnshire follows the course of the river for a short distance near the bottom lake, and beyond Woolsthorpe, the river is in Lincolnshire.^[8]

Passing back into Leicestershire, it flows throughMuston andBottesford, where there are a number of bridges. At the end of Church Street, Fleming's bridge is a double-archedgrade II listed medieval bridge, now just used by pedestrians, which was built for Samuel Fleming, who was rector in the village between 1581 and 1620.^[9] At Devon Lane, there is a ford, besides which stands a single-arched brick bridge, with two holes passing through the spandrels, and iron railings in the centre of the parapet. It was built in the early 19th century.^[10] Beyond the village, the river is crossed by four railway bridges, only one of which is still in use, carrying the line fromGrantham toNottingham. A fifth bridge, located in fields to the north of the village, consisting of three brick arches, carried the Newark to Leicester railway line over the river. It was opened in 1860, and ceased to be used for railway traffic in 1960. The centre arch collapsed afterheavy rain in 2007, and the whole structure has been replaced by a single steel span, resting on the remains of two of the piers.^[11]

The river again forms the county border, until it reaches Staunton in the Vale, which is in Nottinghamshire. The Winter Beck joins the west bank, as does theRiver Smite soon afterwards. The river passesCotham which lies to the east, and runs close to aCivil Warredoubt atHawton,^[12] to arrive at the outskirts ofNewark-on-Trent. Here it passes another civil war defence, the Queen's Sconce, built in 1644 at a strategic point overlooking the Devon, the Trent and the Great North Road. The site was bought by Newark Urban Council in 1912, and formed part of Devon Park, which has since been extended by further acquisitions of land.^[13] Crossing under the B6166, which follows the course of theFosse Way Roman road at this point, the Devon joins theRiver Trent. Below the bridge, the river is used for moorings, and there is a marina on the western bank. The mouth is below the 50-foot (15 m) contour.^[8]

The Environment Agency measure water quality of the river systems in England. Each is given an overall ecological status, which may be one of five levels: high, good, moderate, poor and bad. There are several components that are used to determine this, including biological status, which looks at the quantity and varieties ofinvertebrates,angiosperms and fish, and chemical status, which compares the concentrations of various chemicals against known safe concentrations. Chemical status is rated good or fail.^[14]

The water quality of the Devon was as follows in 2019. Data for the middle section covers a large section of the River Smite and a small section of the Devon after the two rivers have joined. Reasons for the quality being less than good include sewage discharge for most of the river, and physical modification of the channel and poor nutrient management on adjacent agricultural land on the upper sections.

Like most rivers in the UK, the chemical status changed from good to fail in 2019, due to the presence of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) and mercury compounds, neither of which had previously been included in the assessment.^[18] However the ecological status of the upper river improved from poor to moderate, while the lower river deteriorated from moderate to poor.

Media related toRiver Devon, Nottinghamshire at Wikimedia Commons

53°04′18″N0°49′23″W / 53.0717°N 0.8231°W /53.0717; -0.8231

• Rivers of Nottinghamshire
• Trent catchment
• Tributaries of the River Trent

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