Tamar River

Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

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Map of Cornwall

See also Tamar clan

Tamar (/ˈteɪmɑːr/; Cornish: Dowr Tamar) is a river in south west England, that forms most of the border between Devon (to the east) and Cornwall (to the west). The area is a World Heritage Site due to its historic mining activities.

Origin of name

The name Tamar (or Tamare) was mentioned by Ptolemy in the second century in his Geography. The name is said to mean "Great Water."

The Tamar is one of several British rivers whose ancient name is assumed by some to be derived from a prehistoric river word apparently meaning "dark flowing" and which it shares with the River Thames.

The seventh century Ravenna Cosmography mentions a Roman settlement named Tamaris, but it is unclear which of the towns along the Tamar this refers to. Plymouth, Launceston and the Roman fort at Calstock have been variously suggested.

The Thames, from Middle English Temese, is derived from the Brittonic Celtic name for the river, Tamesas (from *tamēssa), recorded in Latin as Tamesis and yielding modern Welsh Tafwys "Thames". The name may have meant "dark" and can be compared to other cognates such as Russian темно (Proto-Slavic *tĭmĭnŭ), Lithuanian tamsi "dark", Latvian tumsa "darkness", Sanskrit tamas and Welsh tywyll "darkness" (Proto-Celtic *temeslos) and Middle Irish teimen "dark grey". The same origin is shared by countless other river names, spread across Britain, such as the River Tamar at the border of Devon and Cornwall, several rivers named Tame in the Midlands and North Yorkshire, the Tavy on Dartmoor, the Team of the North East, the Teifi and Teme of Wales, the Teviot in the Scottish Borders, as well as one of the Thames' tributaries called the Thame.

Kenneth H. Jackson has proposed that the name of the Thames is not Indo-European (and of unknown meaning), while Peter Kitson suggested that it is Indo-European but originated before the Celts and has a name indicating "muddiness" from a root *tā-, 'melt'.

Course

The Tamar's source is less than 6 km from the north Cornish coast, but it flows southward and its course runs across the peninsula to the south coast. The total length of the river is 98 km. At its mouth, the Tamar flows into the Hamoaze before entering Plymouth Sound, a bay of the English Channel.

Tributaries of the river include the rivers Inny, Ottery, Kensey and Lynher (or St Germans River) on the Cornish side, and the Deer and Tavy on the Devon side.

Jat clans

• Tamar

History

The east bank of the Tamar was fixed as the border of Cornwall by King Athelstan in the year 936. Several villages north of Launceston, to the west of the Tamar, were transferred to Devon somewhen in the eleventh century; the border was changed to follow the River Ottery westward, rather than the Tamar. The county boundary was restored to the Tamar in 1966, when the civil parishes of North Petherwin and Werrington were transferred from Devon to Cornwall. The Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844 ensured parishes were entirely within one county. It transferred a part of the Rame Peninsula (on the west side of the Hamoaze) from Devon to Cornwall (namely, parts of the parishes of Maker[21] and St John). The Act also transferred part of the parish of Bridgerule to Devon and part of the parish of North Tamerton to Cornwall — these latter transfers created two of the present-day 'exceptions' to the river boundary.

"There was the speedy Tamar, which divides The Cornish and the Devonish confines;

Through both whose borders swiftly downe it glides. And, meeting Plim, to Plimmouth thence declines: And Dart, nigh chockt with sands of tinny mines;" From "Rivers of England" by Edmund Spenser

The modern administrative border between Devon and Cornwall more closely follows the Tamar and Hamoaze than the 'historic' county border (of the 11th to 19th centuries). Only three 'exceptions' to the rule that the border follows the river (from source to sea) currently exist, all of which are upstream of the confluence of the River Deer, in the upper course of the Tamar. Part of the Cornish civil parish of North Tamerton extends east across the river, whilst parts of the Devon civil parishes of Bridgerule and Pancrasweek extend west across the Tamar. Where the border does follow the Tamar, it is defined as being along a line running at the centre of the river (rather than along one of its banks) — where the river is tidal, it is the centre of the low water channel. This "centre of river" arrangement ends just upstream of the Tamar Bridge at Saltash, downstream of which the counties officially extend only to their respective (tidal) bank's low water mark. The river is dammed at two points of its upper course, forming two reservoirs in place of the natural river: at Upper Tamar Lake the border follows the line of the river as it was prior to the construction of the reservoir (therefore now within the lake), whilst at the older Lower Tamar Lake the border was re-aligned along a (now disused) re-routing of the river to the reservoir's west side, placing the lake in Devon.

In Mahabharata

List of Mahabharata people and places includes Tamara (तामर) (VI. 10.68).