Talk:River Teme

Commercial navigation

See also /Archive 1#Commercial navigation

See also this posting by Kudpung to User talk:Peterkingiron

From the point of view of a purely lay person looking up the River Teme, I'm not sure I would want to be confronted by a debate, however rational and well sourced, on which publications provide the most accurate reporting of the navigability of the river.--Kudpung (talk) 17:18, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

There has been no substantive contribution to this debate for about 2 years. It is possible that the present section is too long. However, ultimately this is an old debate, and I would suggest that it be archived (with all or most discussions above this point. It will be noted that various contributors querying the article were not logged in. Peterkingiron (talk) 13:05, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Archiving Done --PBS (talk) 11:30, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Kudpung although the navigation of the Teme, may not be of much interest to you, it may well be of interest to someone who looks at the Teme from a historical angle, as before the advent of steam water transport was important. For example the towns of Worcester and Hereford were both Royalist for most of the First Civil War. Because it was not navigable, the Teme's strategic use was primarily as an obstacle and its bridges were pulled down and fought over several times. If it had been navigable its strategic importance would have been imminence as it would have facilitated the movement of men and supplies from the Royalist rear areas to areas of conflict which existed in the southern Midlands. To such a reader the "Recreational use" will be of less interest, but that is no reason for removing it. While the section "Commercial navigation" may be more detailed than some other sections, as the article is not too large, over time the other sections will probably expand and when that happens the "Commercial navigation" will not look out of place.--PBS (talk) 11:30, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

The navigation section currently reads more like an academic argument than an encyclopaedia. I, too, am a complete novice when it comes to rivers and navigability, so I may be missing the point. PBS - your comment is interesting - I didn't get that information from the article. Maybe you could rewrite the section to read less like a blow-by-blow refutation of the evidence, but concisely explain the historical significance of the river's navigability? GyroMagician (talk) 14:44, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

To fully understand why the section is as it is, one has to go back to a revision as of 7 March 2006. Yes it is an academic argument, but the BBC and Wikipedia got drawn into it. It was necessary to present the information as it was, because there were a number of websites including a BBC one and Wikipedia, which presented the view that the Teme was navigable (See the talk archive for what happened to the the BBC page). There was an edit war over the issue, and the current section is the result of this, but if a search of Teme navigation is done then there are still a number of pages which reflect the old wording of this page (knowledgerush:River Teme, allexperts:River Teme) and is mentioned in other forum "ACCESS HASSLES: Canoeists say the Teme is an ancient navigation, and anglers seem to think it is their exclusive river, and get quite stroppy. So I only go in the closed season – March 15 – June 15.". See also this paper and this paper from The Royal Historical Society Bibliography. I think until there is agreement on this issue, we have to present the arguments in such a way as to give a balanced POV in the issue.

I would love to add a point on the Civil War and navigation, but I can not do so as I do not have a source that points out how useful it would have been to the Cavaliers have a navigable River Teme. I do have a source of how useful navigation on the River Severn was to the Roundheads, because that is recorded ... (sigh!) --PBS (talk) 11:24, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I have heavily pruned the section. The present version of the text largely reflects my POV, as set out in Journal of Railway and Canal Historical Society. However, I believe that I have reliable sources, whereas the proponents of navigability have none (or at best exceptionally little). I hope that what I have done does not reopen a debate that was closed. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:34, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation?

What is it? /te:m/? /ti:m/? /teim/? 95.46.83.239 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 11:07, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Same as the common word "team" /tiːm/. Argovian (talk) 12:28, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I have added it to the lede. Argovian (talk) 12:41, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Length

A figure is given in the infobox for the length of the Teme (130km / 81 miles) but no source is given for that figure. Elsewhere in the article it is stated that it is the 16th longest river in the UK but the given references do not include the information to back up that assertion - there's no reference at the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom page either. Due to this uncertainty I have painstakingly measured its length on OS mapping and determined it at 134.3km / 83.5 miles - I'd be confident of the accuracy of the figure to within 0.5%. 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) 05:01, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Sources, even from official bodies, are conflicting. They range between 122-130-139 kilometres (the last of which may include a stretch of the Clun). Given that the river is liable to flood and cut across meanders, older records won't be trustworthy either. Sweetpool50 (talk) 15:05, 10 November 2022 (UTC)