River Stour

The River Stour () is a river in East Anglia, England. It is 47 miles long and forms most of the county boundary between Suffolk to the north, and Essex to the south. It rises in eastern Cambridgeshire, passes to the east of Haverhill, through Cavendish, Bures, Sudbury, Nayland, Stratford St Mary, Dedham and flows through the Dedham Vale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It becomes tidal just before Manningtree in Essex and joins the North Sea at Harwich.

On one theory, the name Stour derives from the Celtic sturr meaning "strong". However, the river-name Stour, common in England, does not occur at all in Wales; Crawford noted two tributaries of the Po River near Turin, spelled Stura. In Germany the Stoer is a tributary of the River Elbe. According to Brewer's Britain and Ireland the Stour is pronounced differently in different cases: the Kentish and East Anglian Stours rhyme with tour; the Oxfordshire Stour is sometimes rhymes with mower, sometimes with hour, and the Worcestershire Stour always rhymes with hour. Locally, the River Stour dividing Essex from Suffolk does not have a uniform pronunciation, varying from stowr to stoor.

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