Oldcotes Dyke is the name of the final section of a river system that drains parts of north Nottinghamshire and the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England.

The river begins as a small stream near the 410-foot (125 m) contour and close to the B6093 Moor Lane South road at Ravenfield.

If flows to the east, forming the southern boundary of the housing of the village, with open land on its south bank.

A little further to the south, Hellaby Bridge carries the A631 Rotherham to Bawtry road over the combined flow, and it is joined by Newhall Dike, which rises at Cum Well, further west but to the east of the motorway.

It is strung out along the river, hemmed in by the steep sides of the valley, until Sheep Wash bridge at Gypsy Lane is reached.

[6] Of all the Cistercian monasteries in England, the ground plan at Roche is one of the most complete, and despite much of the complex being dismantled after the dissolution of 1538, the early gothic transepts survive, and are some of the finest examples of the style in Britain.

[8] Brown's concept of a "romantic ruin" passed out of favour, and James H. Aveling began the process of excavating the site in the late 1850s.

Larger scale removal of Brown's infilling of the site began in the 1880s, when the 10th Earl of Scarborough ensured that the process was recorded photographically.

Responsibility for the ruins passed to the State following the First World War, after which Brown's lake was drained and the original water channels were rediscovered and reinstated.

[1] The course of the river turns towards the north-east, and it enters Laughton Pond, a large artificial lake, created by Capability Brown and completed in 1776.

[17] Another set of lakes are in front of Firbeck Hall, a country house with a 16th-century core, which was remodelled and extended in the 18th and 19th centuries.

[18] The club was short-lived, due to the onset of the Second World War, and it was subsequently used as a rehabilitation centre until 1990,[19] after which it fell into dereliction.

[20] The level of the lakes is controlled by a weir, built as part of a single-arched bridge constructed in the early 19th century for H. Gally Knight, who owned the hall at the time.

Little remains of the original building, although parts of it, dating from the early 18th century, have been incorporated into Yews Mill House.

[24] The mill stream rejoins the main course to pass under a bridge carrying Haven Hill, and the river becomes Oldcotes Dyke.

[27] The river passes through Fishpond Plantation, and turns to the south east, running parallel to the A634 road from Oldcotes to Blyth.

A weir lowers the level into the second lake, and the overflow from this flows through woods and through a culvert beneath the remains of the railway sidings for Firbeck Colliery, Langold.

A water mill constructed of stone with a roof of pantiles was built at the site around 1800 by the father of Sir T. W. White.

[30] A two-arched bridge with a stepped overshoot for the mill race, built in the 1830s, carries Church Lane over the Dike.

There are a number of channels in the vicinity of the Priory, a country house originally build in 1829, but remodelled by George Devey between 1873 and 1876.

The first row is for Oldcodes Dyke from its junction with the River Ryton westwards to Maltby Dike, but stopping at the M18 motorway.

Like most rivers in the UK, the chemical status changed from good to fail in 2019, due to the presence of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE), perfluorooctane sulphonate (PFOS) and mercury compounds, none of which had previously been included in the assessment.

The sewage ran onto agricultural land, and into Slacks Pond, a private fishing lake, which discharged into Kingsforth Brook, and subsequently into Maltby Dike.

The incident resulted in a number of fish dying, and the population of certain invertebrates, including fresh water shrimps, being depleted.

Because Severn Trent Water, the owner of the pipeline, had received two previous warnings about similar incidents at this location, they were fined £480,000, and ordered to pays the costs of the Environment Agency, who brought the case to court.