Country diary: River swallows river on its slow way to the ocean | Derek Niemann

Tempsford, Bedfordshire: At the confluence of the Ouse and the Ivel, one can easily imagine staring upriver and seeing the prow of invading longboatsSaxon meets Saxon at the joining of two rivers, the end of a journey for one, swallowed by the other on its ocean-bound course. The land runs out at a V-shaped spit, a grass-topped bank crumbling away to beaches on either side of wet earth and stones.History lingers here in the silt of words whose original meanings are as good as lost. The River Ivel, named for a local tribe, surrenders both its identity and waters as it ripples over a bar of shingle, confused by mingling and resistance from the soon to be mighty Ouse, cutting a broad sweep towards the north. The larger river's name comes from the Old English for big river. As it drinks tributaries through Cambridgeshire and into Norfolk, growing still wider and wider, it will become recast as the Great Ouse. Truly and literally, the great big river. Continue reading...