[1] Neolithic to Saxon finds from along the River Ribble during the creation of the Preston Docks and others revealed man has been in the area for a long time.

[10] After his defeat in the Battle of Hexham in 1464 (during the Wars of the Roses), King Henry VI went into hiding at a number of houses belonging to his supporters.

[11] Around 1785, a large weir was constructed across the river, slightly downstream at Waddow Hall, to supply water to a cotton mill at Low Moor.

[12] During 2009, an Archimedean screw type hydropower station was constructed at Settle weir near Bridge End Mill.

[14] It flows through Settle, Clitheroe, Ribchester and Preston, before emptying into the Irish Sea between Lytham St. Annes and Southport, a length of 75 miles (121 km).

[5] The Normal Tidal Limit (NTL) of the river is at Fishwick Bottoms, between Preston and Walton-le-Dale, 11 miles (18 km) from the sea.

In addition, many tributaries flow into the main channel including the Savick Brook/Ribble Link, while the River Douglas, has a significant influence both on sediment transport and hydrodynamics of the estuary.

The age of the present sandstone bridge is not known, but parts contain features indicating they may date to the late medieval period.

[21] Several ferry crossings were marked along the lower part of the river, on the first Ordnance Survey map of Lancashire, published in the 1840s.

[24] A Ribble estuary fixed crossing has been proposed on several occasions, to provide a quicker route between the seaside resorts of Southport and Blackpool.

[27] A road link was campaigned for in 2007, envisaging a development similar to the Rance Tidal Power Station in Brittany.

[28] In 2011, an April fools' joke suggested a 9-mile-long (14 km) road tunnel from Marshside to Lytham St Annes.

The Ribble Estuary is an Internationally important Ramsar Wetland site,[30] a Special Protection Area (SPA) under the Joint Nature Conservation Committee,[31] a Marine Conservation Zone up to Samlesbury,[32][33][34] Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI),[35] a National Nature Reserve,[36][34] and is under development as a Coast & Wetlands Regional Park.

[38] The aim of these proposals was to build a barrage and a water sports park on a section of the Ribble, coupled with over 4,000 units of housing and businesses in the river's flood plain.

[citation needed] Certainly there were links between Cheshire and south Lancashire before 1000, when Wulfric Spot held lands in both territories.

Wulfric's estates remained grouped together after his death, when they were left to his brother Aelfhelm, and indeed there still seems to have been some kind of connexion in 1086, when south Lancashire was surveyed together with Cheshire by the Domesday commissioners.

Nevertheless, the two territories do seem to have been distinguished from one another in some way and it is not certain that the shire-moot and the reeves referred to in the south Lancashire section of Domesday were the Cheshire ones.The Domesday Survey (1086) included south Lancashire with Cheshire for convenience, but the Mersey, the name of which means 'boundary river' is known to have divided the kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia and there is no doubt that this was the real boundary.53°45′N 2°46′W / 53.750°N 2.767°W / 53.750; -2.767