The River Rother, a waterway in the northern midlands of England, gives its name to the town of Rotherham and to the Rother Valley parliamentary constituency. It rises in Pilsley in Derbyshire and flows in a generally northwards direction through the centre of Chesterfield, where it feeds the Chesterfield Canal, and on through the Rother Valley Country Park and several districts of Sheffield before joining the River Don at Rotherham in Yorkshire. Historically, it powered mills, mainly corn or flour mills, but most had ceased to operate by the early 20th century, and few of the mill buildings survive.
From the 1880s, the water quality deteriorated rapidly, as a result of coal mining and its associated communities. The river became unable to sustain life, and by 1974, was the most polluted of the rivers within the River Don catchment. The pollutants came from coking plants, from inefficient sewage treatment plants, and from the manufacture of chemicals. Major investment in upgrading the sewage treatment works took place, and in the treatment of industrial effluent before it was discharged to the river. The closure of the main coking plants has also aided the recovery of the river, and enabled restocking with fish to begin in 1994. By 1996, there was evidence for self-sustaining fish populations, and that the river could support organised angling.
A short section of the river in Chesterfield was once navigable, and may become so again as part of a development project, while there are plans to use the course from Rother Valley Country Park to Rotherham for the Rother Link, which would connect the Chesterfield Canal to the River Don Navigation. The lower river is managed because of flood risk: three regulators can restrict its flow. Their operation normally causes flooding of washlands, rather than of centres of population, which might otherwise be inundated.
Etymology
The second element of the name 'Rother' is the Common Brittonic -duβr, meaning 'water' (Welsh dwfr). The first element could be rö-, an intensive Brittonic prefix meaning 'great', or rūδ, 'red, reddish-brown'.
Course
The source of the river is at Pilsley near Clay Cross in Derbyshire, from where it flows to the west for a short distance, before turning to the north. The valley is shared with the Derby to Rotherham Railway, which makes the first two of a total of 20 crossings before the river reaches the eastern edges of Danesmoor. It is joined by another stream before passing to the west of North Wingfield, after which the Red Lead Mill Brook joins from the west. Before reaching Chesterfield, Birdholme Brook joins it from the west at Birdholme, Calow Brook joins from the east at Hady, and the River Hipper joins it on the southern edge of the town.
Within Chesterfield, the river was navigable, as the Chesterfield Canal joined the river and used it to access basins on the western bank. The first basin was connected to the river near Wharf Lane footbridge, but the coming of the railway severed the link, and a new basin was constructed to the north of the Brimington Road bridge in 1890. The canal company were not authorised by their Act of Parliament to use the river, but did so despite that. This stretch of the river forms part of a £300 million redevelopment project called Chesterfield Waterside, which will provide housing and amenities in an area which is currently derelict land. The project involves the creation of a short length of new canal to create an island in the centre of the site. A new basin has been constructed near the site of the 1890 basin, although it has not yet been connected to the river. Outline planning permission for the whole site was granted on 15 March 2010.
Below Chesterfield
Between Chesterfield and Tapton, the river flows over a large weir while the canal is protected from flooding by a flood gate. The two waterways remain close as they flow northwards between New Whittington and Brimington, where the River Drone joins from the west. At Old Whittington both turn to the east, before turning north again at Staveley. Just before Renishaw, the river passes Slittingmill Farm, once the site of a slitting mill constructed by George Sitwell in the 1650s, used to split iron bars from his furnaces into thin strips for the production of nails, and the first to be constructed in the East Midlands. After the River Doe Lea joins the Rother from the east, the river is crossed by a grade II listed two-arched bridge built around 1840 by the North Midland Railway, which carries a minor road to the golf course.