So to avoid any confusion this is the Ouse. Not the
Great Ouse the we met in King's Lynn, nor yet the Little Ouse not even the Sussex Ouse; just the plain old
Yorkshire Ouse that runs down from above the city of York until it reaches the Trent and forms the Humber. Like the Great Ouse, this river brought trade and invaders up into the heart of the country to the ancient trading city of York. It has been estimated that a sailing ship could reach York in a few hours from Hull on an incoming tidal bore known locally as
the aegir. In 1066 Harald Sigurdsson, king of Norway, aka
Hardrada (the hard ruler) took his Viking fleet of several hundred ships up the Ouse to York in one day and defeated the inhabitants at the Battle of Fulford.
So the river is historically important, less so now that Hull took away York's trade, sea going vessels go no further inland than Goole and Vikings have found oil and gas in the North Sea and have settled down to making detective films instead.
The bridge we are going over is the Ouse rail bridge near Goole for we are on a day trip to Sheffield on an errand so ridiculously silly that you really wouldn't believe grown up, responsible adults would countenance such behaviour.
