The River Rother flows from Empshott in Hampshire, England, to Stopham in West Sussex, where it joins the River Arun. At long, most of the river lies within West Sussex except for the first which lie in Hampshire. The upper river, from its source to Midhurst, has been used to power watermills, with the earliest recorded use being in 1086, when the Domesday survey was conducted. Although none are still operational, many of the buildings which housed the mills still exist, and in some cases, still retain their milling machinery. This upper section is also noted for a number of early bridges, which have survived since their construction in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The lower river, from Midhurst to its junction with the River Arun, has been used for navigation. Boats used the section from the Arun to Fittleworth following improvements made to the Arun in 1615, and after the Arun Navigation was completed in 1790, the Earl of Egremont made the river navigable up to Midhurst by constructing eight locks and some small cuts. The work was completed in 1794, and many of the bridges built at that time still survive. With the opening of the Mid-Sussex Railway branch to Midhurst in 1859, traffic declined, and commercial use of the river had ceased by the 1880s. Pleasure boats continued to be used on the river for many years, and published accounts of journeys along the decaying navigation appeared in 1914 and 1920. The navigation was officially abandoned in 1936, after an undergraduate pointed out that it was still a public right of way.

The river flows through the South Downs National Park, and is a designated Site of Nature Conservation Importance, in recognition of its value for wildlife. It supports a wide range of fish, and its upper reaches are the only location in Sussex where native white clawed crayfish can be found. The quality of the water is generally good, and the river is measured at four gauging stations, three on the main channel, and one of the River Lod, just before its junction with the Rother. Water from the underlying Lower Greensand aquifer and the adjacent chalk aquifer helps to maintain the flows during the summer months, despite the fact that large volumes are abstracted from both the aquifers and the river for the public water supply.

History

Following improvements to the River Arun in 1615, which allowed boats to reach Pallingham, they could also navigate part of the Rother, as far upstream as Fittleworth. The canal engineer William Jessop was asked to survey the river below Petworth Mills in 1783, and was recalled in 1790, when he surveyed it below Midhurst. In the same year, the construction of the Arun Navigation was finished, and in 1791, George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont, who was based at Petworth House, obtained an act of Parliament, the (31 Geo. 3. c. 66), which would enable him to improve the Rother. The act also authorised a branch canal to Petworth. Since he owned most of the land adjacent to the river, the precise route of the navigation was not specified, and he was free to improve the channel or make cuts as he saw fit. The only restriction was that cuts could not be made through gardens or enclosed grounds. Compared to most other canals at the time, the charges for using the navigation were low, as the earl wanted to develop the region rather than make a profit.

The river's lower section, below Midhurst, was made navigable by the construction of the Western Rother Navigation in 1794. The length of the navigation was of which less than consisted of new cuts, with the rest following the existing channel. It rose through from Stopham to Midhurst by a series of eight locks, and cost £13,300 to build. Traffic consisted of coal transported up-river, with cargoes of timber, corn and Petworth marble in the other direction. A branch connected it to Petworth by the short Petworth Canal, which was long with two locks, and terminated at Haslingbourne to the south of the town. It was opened in 1793, having cost the Earl £5,000 to build, but only lasted for a few years, until a turnpike road was diverted. This made access to Petworth easier, and the canal ceased to be used.

Unlike many canals, where navvies were brought into the neighbourhood to carry out the work, the earl employed local men on the project, most of them already employed by him, and a clergyman praised him for this when writing in 1808, as it led to much less disruption, but provided increased income for those who worked on the scheme. Wages rose from 8 or 9 shillings (40-45p) per week to 14 or 15 shillings (70-75p). quoted in During his life, the earl invested some £100,000 in waterways, some in his native county of Sussex, but also in attempts to build a canal from London to Portsmouth. Between 1802 and 1831, the average income from the canal was around £550 per year. Competition arrived in 1859, when the Mid-Sussex Railway opened a line from Horsham through Pulborough to Petworth. Traffic declined, and by the 1880s, the navigation was no longer used by commercial boats, although it was not officially abandoned until 1936.

Closure Despite the navigation being closed, a guide to Midhurst published in 1895 advertised that skiffs could be hired, and fishing could be enjoyed. The boats were hired out by a plumber called William Port, and his business continued to prosper until 1912, when his boathouse burned down. Rowing boats were also available for hire at Coultershaw and Fittleworth. Another book called A New Oarsman's Guide, published in 1896, suggested that the river could be canoed from Iping to the Arun, a distance of , when there was sufficient water. By that time, none of the locks were workable, and boats had to be carried around them.

In 1887, part of the river bank near Todham Lock, which bordered the Cowdray estate of the Earl of Egmont, had collapsed, and the earl suggested that Lord Leconfield of Petworth, a successor to the Earl of Egremont, should pay for its repair. After some disagreement, a compromise was reached, under which the bank was repaired and a floodgate was fitted at the upper end of the lock, with both men paying half of the cost. Lord Leconfield assumed that when the Arun Navigation finally obtained a warrant of abandonment in 1896, his responsibilities for the maintenance of the River Rother had ended. However, in 1903 heavy rain and floods destroyed the floodgate and part of the adjacent weir, resulting in river levels though the 8th Earl of Egmont's estate dropping by . The earl, Augustus Arthur Perceval, issued a writ against Lord Leconfield for damages. The case was heard in the High Court, at which it was agreed that the navigation was now useless, but that the two men would share the costs of rebuilding the floodgate, after which responsibility for its maintenance would pass to the earl, who could also dredge the river above the lock.

P. Bonthron, who published a book entitled My Holidays on Inland Waterways in 1916, described a journey down the river that he had made with friends in 1908, in a boat hired from William Port at Midhurst. They reached Arundel on the River Arun after two days, from where the boat was sent back to Midhurst by train. Another account of a similar journey made in 1914 by Eleanor Barnes and a friend appeared in As the Water Flows, first published in 1920, which described canoe journeys on the rivers of southern England made by her over a period of seven or eight years. The warrant of abandonment was obtained jointly by the estates at Petworth and Cowdray after an Oxford undergraduate called Roger Sellman pointed out that the river was still officially a right of way, and that anyone could therefore offer to pay the appropriate tolls to use a boat on it, and expect the owners to rebuild the locks. The powers of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act 1888 (51 & 52 Vict. c. 25) were invoked to declare that the navigation was no longer necessary, and despite objections from the River Arun Catchment Board and a canoe club, the warrant was granted on 15 April 1936. However, the Environment Agency noted in 2003 that although there used to be navigation rights on the river, "the existing status of the navigation is unknown."

Hydrology

The river flows through the South Downs, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and since 2011, a designated national park. There are two large aquifers in the area, one consisting of chalk, to the south of the river valley, and the other the Lower Greensand Group, underlying the whole of the river. The aquifers are separated by a Gault Formation, which consists of clay. At the western edge of the region, both the chalk and the gault turn to the north, creating a scarp slope. The base flow of the river consists of water from the Lower Greensand aquifer, and from springs along the bottom of the chalk scarp slope. These help to maintain the flows in the river during the summer months, although there have been significant periods where flows have been low, notably in the drought of the early 1990s, and again in 1995–96. These led to declines in the populations of the macro-invertebrates which are used to measure the health of a river, but these have subsequently recovered. In order to monitor the hydrology, the Environment Agency has a series of observation boreholes along the valley, and maintains gauging stations at Princes Marsh, close to the source, at Iping Mill, at Halfway Bridge on the River Lod just above its junction with the Rother, and at Hardham, just before the river joins the Arun.

Flows in the river are swelled by discharges from several sewage treatment works. The three largest are at Princes Marsh, Petersfield and Ambersham, all of which have outflows between per day, with another three discharging between per day at Rogate, Coultershaw and Fittleworth. The entire river, including parts of some of its tributaries, is designated as a Site of Nature Conservation Importance by the local authorities through which it flows, in recognition of its value for wildlife. The upper reaches of the Rother are important for their fish populations of brown trout, grayling, juvenile sea trout, and the spawning and early development of salmonids. There are also populations of bullhead, eel, lamprey, minnow and stone loach. There has been some concern about declining fish stocks, thought to be partly caused by soil erosion, leading to silt and sediments being deposited on the river bed, which has been exacerbated by low flows in the river. Parts of the lower river support the same types of fish, but there are areas, particularly immediately upstream of weirs, where the major species are bream, pike and roach, with chubb, dace and perch on the lowest reaches. In order to assist the movement of fish along the river, particularly those that migrate to the headwaters to spawn, fish passes have been constructed around the gauging stations. The only known population of native white clawed crayfish in Sussex is located in the upper reaches of the Rother.