It rises close to Featherstone and flows eastward, joining the River Don just to the north of Pincheon Green.

The estate is a scheduled monument, while the mill is a grade II listed building, as are several of the bridges that cross the river.

In the 21st century, the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and other organisations have been working on remediation projects on the upper river, to overcome the worst effects of opencast mining.

The grade II listed bridge has two arches, made of rockfaced magnesian limestone and sandstone ashlar blocks, and is probably early nineteenth century.

When it was built, it was the largest bridge of this kind in Europe, and in 1964 the New York City Museum of Modern Art declared it to be a structure of significance in twentieth century engineering.

[7] By the time it reaches another railway line, it is only 16 feet (4.9 m) above sea level, and the channel is embanked on both sides to prevent flooding of the surrounding low-lying land.

[3] Beyond Went bridge, where the A19 road crosses, the river used to take a winding route round the southern edge of Stubbs Common, but a new straight channel has been made, which has counter drains on either side, to collect seepage through the banks.

The Doncaster to Selby railway line crosses next,[3] after which an early nineteenth century red-brick bridge carries a lane over its course at Topham.

[10] An outcrop of Permian Magnesian Limestone, some 3.7 miles (6 km) wide, runs across Yorkshire from Castleford in the north to Sprotborough in the south.

Because the land is low as a result of mining subsidence, the Coal Authority funds capital works and maintenance of the station.

Because of the large number of wetland plant species that grow there, it has been designated at a Site of Special Scientific Interest, the Wentbridge Ings SSSI.

The Dauvm Commissioers maintain four pumping stations within the network, to cope with low-lying areas created by mining subsidence.

A small amount of water from the north of the catchment passes through a culvert under the M62 motorway to Beal Lane pumping station.

[21] In Yorkshire and the surrounding areas, "dam" is used to describe the body of water formed by an impounding structure, rather than the bank that creates the pond or lake.

[21] At Shepherds Hill bridge, now carrying the A638 road to the south of Ackworth Moor Top, Hoyle Mill Stream split into two, with the eastern branch following the modern course of the river, while the western branch is now marked by a public footpath that runs along the eastern edge of Ackworth Moor Top.

It occupied an area of 1.016 acres (0.411 ha), and a corn mill was situated on the northern edge of Kirk Smeaton.

The manor was owned by Ilbert de Laci when the Domesday Book was compiled, when the mill was worth 5 shillings (25p).

[26] The mill building is grade II listed, and consists of two storeys and a loft, built in roughcast rubble with a pantile roof.

[28] The state of the Don was similarly lifeless, but by the 1970s, water quality in the lower Went was slightly improved, as a result of natural purification of the effluents being added to the river, and a small population of fish re-established itself.

As water quality continued to improve, the fish became self-sustaining by the 1980s, and populations of roach, bream, perch and eels began to spread upstream.

[28] In order to overcome this problem, the Yorkshire Water Authority Fisheries department searched for a source of chub and dace which could be re-introduced.

An isolated population was eventually found on the River Ouse where Bishop Dike joins it at Cawood.

The operation was a success, as the fish colonised the river upstream and downstream from the release point, and soon became self-sustaining.

In 2020 the Wild Trout Trust surveyed some 270 yards (250 m) of the river above the school grounds to advise on further remediation work.

Reasons for the ecological quality being less than good include runoff from agricultural land, discharge from sewage treatment works, and physical modification of the channel, to provide flood production structures which impede the movement of fish along the river.

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.