The landscape of the Lerryn catchment is rural and includes heathland, moorland and rough pasture in the upper reaches and broadleaf, coniferous and mixed plantation woodland in the lower.
[1] The Lerryn rises at Fairy Cross (Grid ref.
SX1262) on the southern slopes of Bodmin Moor and flows south-southwest until it enters the Fowey estuary (Grid ref.
[2] The name of the river is Cornish; the earliest record of it is as "Leryan" and "Lerion" in 1289.
In modern Cornish its name would be Dowr Leryon, meaning "river of floods".