For other uses, see Humber (disambiguation).

The Humber is a large tidal estuary forming part of the boundary between northern and southern England. It starts at Faxfleet and the Trent Falls at the confluence of the River Ouse and the River Trent; it then passes the junction with the Market Weighton Canal on the north shore, the junction with the River Ancholme on the south shore; past North Ferriby and South Ferriby, under the Humber Bridge and past Barton-upon-Humber on the south bank and Kingston upon Hull on the North bank, where the River Hull joins, then into the North Sea between Cleethorpes and Spurn Head.

Ports on the Humber estuary include Hull, Grimsby, Immingham and New Holland.

In the Anglo-Saxon period, it was a major boundary, separating Northumbria from the southern kingdoms. Indeed the name Northumbria simply indicates the area North of the Humber. It currently forms the boundary between the East Riding of Yorkshire, to the north and North and North East Lincolnshire, to the south.

From 1974 to 1996 the area now known as East Riding, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire constituted Humberside and for hundreds of years before that, The Humber lay between Lindsey and The East Riding of Yorkshire. ("East Riding" is derived from "East Thriding", and likewise with the other ridings; "thriding" is an old word meaning a third part). Since the late eleventh century, Lindsey had been one of the Parts of Lincolnshire.

In August, 2005, Graham Boanas, a Hull man, became the first person to successfully wade across the Humber since Roman times. The trek started on the North bank at Boothferry, 4 hours later, he made it across onto the South bank at Whitton. The feat was attempted to raise cash and awareness for the medical research charity, DebRA.

Two fortifications were built in the mouth of the river in 1914, the Humber Forts. Fort Paull is further upstream.

When the sea level was lower in the Ice Age, the Humber was a freshwater river that could have flowed up to 30 miles or more according to sea level before it reached the sea or joined the Wash River.

The Humber was once known as the Abus, for example in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene.

Etymology

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Its name is recorded in Anglo-Saxon times as Humbre (Anglo-Saxon dative) and Humbri (Latin genitive). As its name recurs in the Humber Brook near Humber Court in Herefordshire or Worcestershire, the word humbr- may be a word that meant "river" or similar in an aboriginal language that was spoken in England before the Celts came (compare Tardebigge).

See also

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• Rivers of the United Kingdom
• North Wall (Humberside)

Estuaries in England | Ramsar sites in England | Rivers in Lincolnshire | Rivers in the East Riding of Yorkshire

Хъмбър | Humber | Humber (rivero) | Humber | Humber | Humber | Humber