River Torne

River Torne
River
The outfall from Candy Farm North pumping station into the Torne
Country	England
Counties	South Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire
Source
- location	Sandbeck Hall, Maltby, South Yorkshire
Mouth
- location	Keadby, North Lincolnshire

The River Torne is a river in the north of England, which flows through the counties of South Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire. It rises at the Upper Lake at Sandbeck Hall, in Maltby in South Yorkshire, and empties into the River Trent at Keadby pumping station. Much of the channel is engineered, as it plays a significant role in the drainage of Hatfield Chase, which it crosses.

The first major change occurred around 1628, when the drainage engineer Cornelius Vermuyden cut a new channel for the river across the Isle of Axholme, and built a sluice at Althorpe where it entered the River Trent. Nearly 90 years of civil unrest followed, before the issues of flooding were finally resolved. Drainage of the land bordering the river was carried out in the 1760s and 1770s. A new sluice was built at Keadby, lower downstream on the Trent in the 1780s, but the Torne was not re-routed to it until much later. The sluice at Keadby became a pumping station in 1940, and the option to pump water into the Trent at all states of the tide led to the abandonment of the Althorpe outfall, and the routing of the Torne to Keadby.

There are a number of pumping stations along the course of the river. Tickhill pumping station was built in the 1970s, to handle water from the Middle Drain, which crosses an area affected by mining subsidence. It was managed on behalf of the Coal Board by Tickhill Internal Drainage Board (IDB), not part of Doncaster East IDB. There are Environment Agency pumping stations at Candy Farm and Tunnel Pits.

Before 1628, much of the area through which the River Torne now passes was waterlogged, and the river system was quite different. The River Don flowed across Hatfield Chase from Stainforth to Adlingfleet. The River Idle flowed northwards from the point later called Idle Stop, and joined the Don near to Sandtoft, while the Torne formed two channels to the west of Wroot, both of which joined the Idle.