The River Teme (pronounced /tiːm/; Welsh: Afon Tefeidiad) rises in Mid Wales, south of Newtown, and flows southeast roughly forming the border between England and Wales for several miles through Knighton before entering England in the vicinity of Bucknell and continuing east to Ludlow in Shropshire.

The river is crossed by a number of historic bridges including one at Tenbury Wells that was rebuilt by Thomas Telford following flood damage in 1795.

[2] The first known mention of the River Teme is in an eleventh-century manuscript containing a copy of a charter from around 770, where the name takes the forms Tamede and Temede.

[4] The river source is in Mid Wales, on the western side of Bryn Coch in the hills near the village of Kerry, Dolfor to the south of Newtown, Powys.

From there to its confluence with the River Severn, about 40 miles/65 km downstream at Worcester, it flows through the counties of Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire.

[12] A Site of Special Scientific Interest throughout its length, it is a clean river and after many years of decline the population of otters is recovering,[13] but obstructions keep salmon numbers at a low level.

[23] In addition, the boathouse at Newnham Bridge (three miles downstream of Tenbury Wells) was large enough, and substantial enough, to be converted later into a house.

[26] Another book, Down Along Temeside, includes an account of travelling by boat from Ludford Mill to Orleton (a couple of miles upstream of Stanford Bridge) in the early 20th century.

William Sandys who between 1636 and 1639 made the Avon navigable from Tewkesbury to Stratford-upon-Avon was at the same time also authorised to improve the Teme between Worcester and Ludlow.

Having failed to recover the Avon after the Restoration, Sir William Sandys and his son undertook work on the Wye and Lugg.

In the eyes of those who have painted the Teme, it has often been features on its banks which were their main subjects – nowhere more so than at Ludlow Castle, where the river is only incidentally pictured flowing at its base by Samuel Scott[45] and David Cox.

[48] The 18th century landowner Richard Payne Knight had his grounds at Downton Castle, not far away on the banks of the Teme, laid out in the picturesque style of the time, and there the river was incorporated into the design, notably at the ‘alpine bridge’ which he commissioned Thomas Hearne to portray among other views of the site.

[49] In the following century, George Price Boyce was noted for the Pre-Raphaelite precision of his landscape paintings,[50] some of which featured the high banks of the river.

[51] Later on, Worcester-born Harry William Adams (1868–1947) painted the Teme's lower reaches, specialising in atmospheric effects such as a snow scene above the valley[52] or overhanging woodland at sunset.

[54] A few years later an anonymous Ludlow poet submits "the production of a young man…to the public with becoming deference", including among them a "Sonnet to the River Teme".

[55] A. E. Housman made only a passing mention of the river's name in A Shropshire Lad, but that ensured its incorporation into the song cycle Ludlow and Teme (1923) when Ivor Gurney set some of the poems to music.