Course
The river Poulter rises at a spring to the south west of Scarcliffe in Derbyshire, close to the 520-foot (160 m) contour, and skirts around the southern edge of the village, before flowing in a north-easterly direction towards Nether Langwith. At the western edge of Langwith, it passes under the abandoned track of the railway which served Langwith Colliery, and then skirts around a modern fish farm. Owl Sick, a stream which rises at Owl Spring in Scarcliffe Park joins it near the village, and is itself joined by a stream which rises near Whaley Hall Farm, and flows in a south-easterly direction through Whaley and the Poulter Country Park. The Country Park was once the location of the waste tips from Langwith Colliery, which closed in 1978. By 1987, most of the site had been cleared, although one of the shafts was retained, as water continued to be pumped from the pit into the river, in order to keep the neighbouring Creswell mine drained. The waste tips were then landscaped in 1988 to form the country park.
The combined streams flow into the millpond which supplied Scarcliffe Mill, one of four mills known to have existed along this stretch. Records from Newstead Priory indicate that there was a mill here in 1432, and it was marked on maps of the late 19th century. By 1938 the last mill was no longer in use, and the building was demolished in the 1960s. The mill pond has become silted as a result of the poor condition of the dam and sluice, but could form a central part of a conservation area based on Apsley Grange, a large building on the opposite side of the road. Below the mill site, a small brick building once held pumps which were used to regulate the levels in the river, and to pump water to Langwith Colliery. Next, the river passes through one arch of an impressive two-arched viaduct which was built in the 1870s by the Midland Railway. Although passenger traffic ceased in 1964, as part of the Beeching cuts, the line remained open for goods trains, and became part of the Robin Hood Line from Worksop to Nottingham in 1998. The other arch of the viaduct crosses the Whaley Thorns road, under which the river flows immediately afterwards.
Passing through Langwith, the river splits into two channels, which pass either side of some houses and join up again at a green open space, at a location where a stone sign indicates that this was the site of a sheep dip in 1896. The next of a series of lakes, called "The Lake", and covering an area of 5.4 acres (2.2 ha), lies just to the east of Nether Langwith, beyond which the flow is augmented by the treated output from Langwith Sewage Treatment Works.
Langwith Mill House follows, marking the location of a cotton mill built in 1786. The building had four storeys and was one of the largest of its type in the region. Cotton milling stopped in 1848, and the mill found a new use as a corn mill from 1886. The building still stands, but is in a poor state of repair, and is on the Buildings at Risk Register. The mill house is a Grade II Listed building, and housed a restaurant for a time, but is now empty. Soon the river splits, the northern channel dropping down, while the southern artificial channel maintains its level as it supplied the first of two mills at Cuckney. There have been mills here for several centuries, for a cotton mill was destroyed by fire in 1792. A lake called Cuckney Dam, covering 8.2 acres (3.3 ha), provided the water to power its replacement, which ceased operation on 12 July 1844. After the machinery had been removed, the Duke of Portland turned the building into a National School. The mill building remains in use as part of Cuckney Primary School, and the weir and sluices have been retained. The drop in level of some 13 feet (4.0 m) between the mill pond and the river beyond has enabled the school to harness the river to generate electricity. The 7 kW crossflow turbine which generates a significant proportion of the energy used by the school, was funded by a grant from Powergen's Green Plan fund and a Clear Skies grant.
Flowing around the northern edge of Cuckney, the river reaches the second corn mill which was situated to the east of the village. The mill building has been demolished, but again the sluices and weir are still visible.
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