It has formerly suffered from pollution, both from the discharge of poorly treated sewage from two treatment works, and from effluent from factories producing dairy products.

These are now well-regulated, but the river was the scene of a major pollution incident in 1985, when pig slurry discharged into it, killing around 100,000 fish.

It passes under the Shrewsbury to Ruabon railway line and the A5 road, to skirt around the northern edge of Gobowen.

Passing under the A495 road to the north of Whittington, it enters the parkland of Halston Hall, supplying a large ornamental lake.

[1] The river briefly heads south to leave the park, and then turns to the east, where it is crossed by the Montgomery Canal.

[1] The river is crossed by Platt Mill Bridge, designed and built in 1791 by Edward Cureton, although also attributed to Thomas Telford.

[5] A circular toll-house, built of red sandstone with a conical slate roof, was erected in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century close to the bridge, and is now used as a house.

Below the junction the river crosses Baggy Moor, a large basin which was filled with peat, but which has been extensively drained to enable it to be used for agriculture.

[9] Prior to 1777, it was flooded every winter, but an Act of Parliament was then obtained, to authorise the improvement and enclosure of 1,283 acres (519 ha) of land.

[11] Below the large meander at Ruyton, where a narrow valley cuts through sandstone, the bed flows over boulder clay with some glacial debris, and becomes stony again.

The lower section retains some of its natural features, including meanders and riffle-pool sequences, which provide habitat for fish.

That at Ruyton Bridge is a velocity area gauging station, while the final one is at Yeaton, where there is a Crump Profile weir.

There are several components that are used to determine this, including biological status, which looks at the quantity and varieties of invertebrates, angiosperms and fish.

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) which had not previously been included in the assessment.