Whiteadder Water

Coordinates: 55°52′52″N 2°34′08″W / 55.881°N 2.569°W

Whiteadder Water
The headwaters of the Whiteadder (May 2006)
Whiteadder Water Whiteadder Water shown within Scotland
OS grid reference	NT645655
List of places UK England East Lothian

Whiteadder Water /ˈhwʌtədər/^[1] is a river in East Lothian and Berwickshire, Scotland. It also flows for a very short distance through Northumberland before joining the River Tweed. In common with the adwaters of the Biel Water it rises on the low hillside of Clints Dod (122 m or 400 ft) in the Lammermuir Hills, just ESE of Whitecastle Hillfort and 3 km (1.9 mi) south-east of the village of Garvald.

The stream wends its way south east for approximately 5 km (3.1 mi) where it joins with the Faseny Water to form the Whiteadder Reservoir created in 1968, which supplies most of the towns of East Lothian (including Cockenzie power station) and Berwickshire, with water.

From there, crossing into Berwickshire it runs alongside the B6355 road to Ellemford where it joins the Dye Water and further on at Abbey St. Bathans, the Monynut Water.

By this point having become a much larger body of flow, the Whiteadder meanders across Eastern parts of the Merse passing the communities of Preston, Chirnside, Allanton. Here at Allanton the Whiteadder joins with its antonymic counterpart the Blackadder Water. The river proceeds by Foulden, Edrington, and Paxton, it crosses into England, before joining the River Tweed, just north of East Ord, a suburb of Berwick-upon-Tweed.

The lowermost section of the Whiteadder is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) by virtue of its Water Crowfoot, Salmon, Lamprey and moulting Mute Swan.

Notability

For those with fishing permits, the Whiteadder provides recreational salmon and trout fishing. It is also the site of Ninewells, the childhood home of David Hume.^[2]

Gallery

• 

  Shale crags along the Whiteadder (April 2006)
• 

  Whiteadder Water and Roughside Wood from the road into Greenburn (February 2007)
• 

  Whiteadder, downstream from Ellemford Bridge (February 2007)
• 

  Whiteadder Water after heavy rainfall, depicting runoff from the peat in the Lammermuir Hills (July 2007)
• 

  Whiteadder Water running around Abbey St Bathans (March 2010)
• 

  Chirnside Bridge over the Whiteadder (May 2010)

See also

• Rivers of Scotland
• List of places in the Scottish Borders

References

1. "Whiteadder". Forvo. Retrieved 2011-10-09.
2. "David Hume - Life and Works". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 2011-10-09. Born in Edinburgh, Hume spent his childhood at Ninewells, the family's modest estate on the Whitadder River in the border lowlands near Berwick.