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Old Durham Beck

A stream near Shincliffe, County Durham. No gauge of its own: what the river map and the banked data say about it.

Old Durham Beck is a stream on Ordnance Survey’s river map near Shincliffe, County Durham, with about 2.2 km of mapped channel. On the map it flows into the River Wear and out to the sea.

Next gauge downstream

Durham New Elvet Bridge on the River Wear, about 1.2 km along the river below where Old Durham Beck ends on the map.

0.21 m Normal · steady 30 min ago

After that, Chester-Le-Street, about 22 km along the river.

No gauge measures Old Durham Beck itself. A gauge downstream shows water that has already passed it, mixed with everything else that has joined on the way, so it says nothing exact about this stream.

Storm overflows on Old Durham Beck

1 storm overflow is placed on this stream on the river map. Each status is the water company’s own monitor.

Shincliffe No 2 PS Not discharging
Northumbrian Water · into Old Durham Beck · 2025: 12 spills, 50 h

A status says whether an overflow is discharging now, never how much or why. A monitor that is offline or has not reported is not “not discharging”. Sewage in Britain’s rivers →

Live status: © Northumbrian Water storm overflow activity data, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Annual spill figures: Environment Agency Event Duration Monitoring return, © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right, Open Government Licence (OGL) v3.0.

Water-sampling points on Old Durham Beck

1 Environment Agency sampling point is placed on this stream. These are dated samples taken by hand, not live readings, and FloodRadar does not grade them.

Old Durham Beck above River Wear confluence
Last sampled 6 Mar 2025 · 19 months ago · 18 samples banked

A sample is taken on a date; it says nothing about the water today. A sample below an overflow does not by itself show where anything in it came from.

Water samples: Environment Agency Water Quality Archive, © Environment Agency and/or database right 2026, Open Government Licence v3.0.

Places along it

From its source towards its mouth, the settlements within a kilometre of it on the map: Sherburn House, West Sherburn, Shincliffe, Old Durham, Gilesgate.

On the map

The map needs JavaScript. Everything it shows is listed on this page.

The blue line is Old Durham Beck; grey lines are other mapped watercourses. Lines from OS Open Rivers (edition 2026-04).

The River Wear, the river it joins →DH1 3LA, a postcode page near where it ends on the map (about 340 m away) →All rivers with gauges →

What this page can and cannot tell you

Its line, its name and where it flows come from Ordnance Survey’s river map (OS Open Rivers, edition 2026-04), which leaves out many small streams, ditches and culverts. “Flows into” is the map’s word: a channel that is not on the map is not shown here, which does not mean it is not there.
No gauge measures Old Durham Beck itself, so its own level is not known here.
Storm overflows are listed only where the river map places them on this stream; an overflow it could not place is not counted.
Water samples are England’s only (the Environment Agency’s archive), placed where the map can place their sampling point.
Nothing on this page says whether any place floods. For an address, see its postcode page.

This uses Environment Agency flood and river level data from the real-time data API (Beta). Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0.