River Great Ouse

The navigational authority for this waterway is Environment Agency
Relevant publications — Waterway Maps:
- Waterway Routes 01M - England and Wales Map
- Waterway Routes 68M - River Great Ouse and Tributaries Map (Downloadable)
Relevant publications — Waterway Guides:
- Great Ouse Navigation | boating, moorings, navigation notices — associated with this page
- Information regarding the Great Ouse navigation and tributaries.
- Information for boaters on the River Great Ouse - GOV.UK — associated with this page
- River Great Ouse: bridge heights, locks, overhead power lines and facilities.
- Facebook Account — associated with this page
- Anglian Waterways Manager Facebook Account
- Facebook Anglian Waterways Page — associated with this page
- Facebook Page for Environment Agency Anglian Waterways
Wikipedia has a page about River Great Ouse
The River Great Ouse () is a river in England, the longest of several British rivers called "Ouse". From Syresham in Northamptonshire, the Great Ouse flows through Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk to drain into the Wash and the North Sea near Kings Lynn. With a course of about 143 miles (230 km), mostly flowing north and east, it is the fifth longest river in the United Kingdom. The Great Ouse has been historically important for commercial navigation, and for draining the low-lying region through which it flows; its best-known tributary is the Cam, which runs through Cambridge. Its lower course passes through drained wetlands and fens and has been extensively modified, or channelised, to relieve flooding and provide a better route for barge traffic. The unmodified river would have changed course regularly after floods.
The name Ouse is from the Celtic or pre-Celtic *Udso-s, and probably means simply "water" or slow flowing river. Thus the name is a pleonasm. The lower reaches of the Great Ouse are also known as "Old West River" and "the Ely Ouse", but all the river is often referred to simply as the Ouse in informal usage (the word "Great" – which originally meant simply big or, in the case of a river, long – is used to distinguish this river from several others called the Ouse).