The dataset includes six files of UK physical river characteristics including five files of gridded data at 1 km x 1 km resolution and one comma separated table. The data includes: • Drainage directions (D8 flow method), ESRI coding • Drainage directions (D8 flow method), unifhy (python hydrology framework) coding • Catchment areas (km2) • Widths of bankfull rivers (m) • Depths of bankfull rivers (m) • NRFA gauging station locations (easting (m), northing (m)) Two versions of drainage directions are provided, both have the same drainage directions but different numbering systems. The comma separated NRFA (National River Flow Archive) gauging station locations table provides the best locations of 1499 river flow gauging stations on the 1km grids, together with the approximate error in the 1km × 1km gridded delineation of the upstream catchment area. All datasets are provided on the British National Grid. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/8df65124-68e9-4c68-8659-1c6b82c735e9