River Poulter

River Poulter
River
The ford at Crookford, where a track crosses the Poulter
Country	England
County	Nottinghamshire
Source
- location	Scarcliffe
Mouth	River Idle
- location	Elkesley

The River Poulter which rises near Scarcliffe in Derbyshire, England is a tributary river of the River Idle in Nottinghamshire. It supplied power to mills along its route, most of which are now gone, although their mill ponds remain. Cuckney mill building is used as a primary school. The river has been dammed to create several lakes in the Dukeries estates of Welbeck Abbey and Clumber House now the National Trust property of Clumber Park. The ornamental Gouldsmeadow Lake, Shrubbery Lake and Great Lake on the Welbeck estate are supplied by a tributary of the Poulter, while Carburton Forge Dam and Carburton Dam were built to power a forge and a mill. Clumber Lake, consisting of an upper and lower lake, which is spanned by a Grade II* listed ornamental bridge, is part of the Clumber estate, and has suffered from subsidence.

Beyond the parklands, the river flows eastwards past Elkesley, to join the River Idle just outside the village close to the A1 road. The river's water quality is good, with most indexes showing that it is not far from being unpolluted enabling it to support populations of fish, while the lakes provide significant habitat for large numbers of birds.

The 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 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 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 the location of Langwith Colliery's waste tip. The colliery closed in 1978 and by 1987 most of the site had been cleared, although a shaft was retained to pump water from the pit into the river to keep the neighbouring Creswell Colliery drained. The waste tips were landscaped in 1988 to form the country park.