The River Tees is much older than many think, being formed over 18,000 years ago, and has an important history, being used for many different purposes. Bringing in trade during the medieval times, evidence of old salt industries can be seen in Seaton Carew by their mounds. Further up the river, bridges were being built for trade either side and can be found in Yarm supporting their medieval villages.
Later, the river became of great importance to the military acting as a frontier during the English Civil War where supplies from Newcastle were transported to Yorkshire using the river. Fighting then broke out when attempts to intercept these supplies were made.
After the 19th century, the river was then straightened artificially to allow for ship transportation during the industrial revolution. To this day, the river is still used for the trade particularly for ship building and now its up to us to record the changes in how we use the river.
Now we are playing our part in creating our history in the Tees River!
The Tees Rivers Trust have been involved with surveys in the intertidal river region to aid in recording part of the Tees River’s wildlife. Conducting these surveys has been key to documenting the changes seen at the river over time and also to know if certain species are declining. During our survey, we found different intertidal organisms such as cockles. Cockles have a history in our river being illegally harvested recently but were also found to be farmed in 1902.
As well, the exciting news that our oyster cages have arrived allowing us to move onto our next step for the River Tees’ future. Our hopes are that these oysters can filter out pollution and sediment at the estuary to create cleaner and clearer waters. As popular food choices, oysters have been fished since Roman Times from the south up to Hadrian’s wall have shown decline throughout history. Our new cages allow us to regrow these species of conservation importance according to environmental legislation.