The Rother Valley Country Park is a

country park A country park is a natural area designated for people to visit and enjoy recreation in a countryside environment. United Kingdom History In the United Kingdom, the term ''country park'' has a special meaning. There are around 250 recognised coun ...

in the

Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham The Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham is a metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. It is named after its largest town, Rotherham, but also spans the outlying towns of Maltby, Swinton, Wath-upon-Dearne, Dinnington and also the vill ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a ceremonial and metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of Doncaster and Sheffield as well as the boroughs of Barnsley and Rotherham. In N ...

, close to Rotherham's border with

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

and

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

. It covers 3 square kilometres (740 acres), has four artificial lakes, recreational activities and nature reserves. The majority of the park is on land that was

open cast Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of minin ...

for coal, with the main excavation sites filled by the artificial lakes.

Description

The park was officially opened on 27 May 1983, at a cost of £4 million. It aimed to provide an area for recreational pursuits, encourage wildlife to return to the area, and provide a flood protection plan for the areas downstream. When the construction was finished, the lakes were filled with fresh water from

The Moss The Moss is a brook in North East Derbyshire, England. When Rother Valley Country Park was built in the 1980s, constructors used water from The Moss to fill the lakes. Name The name of the river derives from ''Moss Beck'', which means 'stream ...

(about away) because the River Rother was so heavily polluted at that time. The park was formerly a mixture of meadows and marshy bullrush beds before the open cast excavation started. At the eastern side of the lake stands the Bedgrave Mill courtyard, where the visitor centre is located displaying the flood defence map and the original mill mechanism "flour into grain" exhibition from when it was a water mill, also there is a craft centre and "The Stables" cafe there.

Cable waterskiing and narrow-gauge railway

Rother Valley Country Park is home to Sheffield Cable Waterski and Aqua Park. The cable waterski system was installed when the park was originally opened to the public and it was one of the few cable waterski systems in the UK at the time. In recent years an Aqua Park (inflatable obstacle course) has been also been added. The popularity of cable waterskiing has grown significantly since this time and there are now a number of these systems in the UK, mainly focused on offering kneeboarding and wakeboarding facilities and what is now called a Wake Park, which is a collection of obstacles (kickers, sliders, etc.) floating in the lake that riders will "hit" on their way round and do tricks from. It is very similar to a snowboard or skateboard park. There is also a licensed waterfront bar and a café at Sheffield Cable Waterski. An long narrow-gauge railway was opened on the east side of the main lake in 2009.

Gulliver's Valley

In February 2017, planning permission was granted for a new resort to be built alongside Rother Valley called "

Gulliver's Valley Gulliver's Valley is a theme park and resort located in Rotherham, England. Construction began in 2018 at a planned cost of £37 million. The first phase, costing £7.5 million, was due to open in spring 2020 but the opening was de ...

". It will be operated by Gullivers theme parks, which operates

Gulliver's Kingdom Gulliver's Kingdom (also known as Gulliver's Matlock Bath) is a theme park aimed at children aged 3-13 in the Derbyshire town of Matlock Bath, England. The park was founded in 1978 by Ray and Hilary Phillips as a model village, before later exp ...

Matlock Bath Matlock Bath is a village and civil parish in Derbyshire, England. It lies in the Peak District, south of Matlock on the main A6 road, and approximately halfway between Buxton and Derby. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census wa ...

Gulliver's Land Gulliver's Land is a children's theme park in Milton Keynes, England. It opened in 1999 and is the third park to be opened by Gulliver's. (The other two parks are Gulliver's World and Gulliver's Kingdom). The park has been designed especially ...

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...

and

Gullivers World Gulliver's World is a theme park located in Warrington, England. It consists of the themed areas Land, Gully Town, and Safari Kingdom. The park's attractions were designed for children between the ages of 2 and 13. Splash Zone and Blast Arena ar ...

Warrington Warrington () is a town and unparished area in the borough of the same name in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England, on the banks of the River Mersey. It is east of Liverpool, and west of Manchester. The population in 2019 was estimat ...

. The theme park will be aimed at families, and the resort will also include a water-park and accommodation in the form of

glamping Glamping is a portmanteau of " glamorous" and "camping", and describes a style of camping with amenities and, in some cases, resort-style services not usually associated with "traditional" camping. Glamping has become particularly popular with ...

. Phase one of the attraction opened in 2020, which includes the main theme park. The site is set to be built in different phases throughout a ten–fifteen year project.

References

Country parks in Yorkshire {{SouthYorkshire-geo-stub