Brigg - Geography

Geography

Brigg is roughly 230 kilometres (140 mi) directly north of London. The nearest big towns are Lincoln 35 kilometres (22 mi) to the south, Scunthorpe 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) to the west, Grimsby 27 kilometres (17 mi) to the east, and Hull 23.5 kilometres (14.6 mi) to the north. The local area is broadly the south bank of the Humber estuary.

The town itself sits on a spur of the Lincolnshire Wolds that juts out into the valley of the Ancholme—a tributary of the Humber—which historically provided a narrow crossing point of the river and its flood plain. The Wolds proper rise to the east, reaching a maximum of roughly 100 metres (330 ft) about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from the town, although with a lower pass at the Kirmington Gap. To the west the land gently slopes up to roughly 70 metres (230 ft) on the Lincolnshire Edge about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) away.

Between these low ranges of hills the Ancholme river runs south to north through its flat, low–lying flood plain, with a north–south height difference of only a few metres. The town sits on alluvial soils of the Ancholme, and the area surrounding the town was previously a semi–flooded marsh known as carrs. A series of drainage improvements from the 1630s to the 1820s transformed the whole of the valley into arable land. The largest of the drainage channels is also a canal known as the New River Ancholme. The original course of the river has been obliterated in places by the drainage works, but its discontinuous surviving length is known as the Old River Ancholme.

The town itself lies mostly on the east bank of the old river, with a small amount to the west. A portion of the west bank is cut off from the rest by the new river, forming an island–like piece of land known as Island Carr. Due to nearness of the river, the town regularly suffers minor flooding, and concerns over flood plain development are a major issue in local planning. The only other watercourse of reasonable size is Candley Beck, which runs through the very southern parts of the town. There are also about half a dozen clayponds along the riverside in Brigg where clay was formerly extracted for brick–making.