The river passes through the parkland of the Arts and Crafts Pickenham Hall, and further downstream, flows through the Army's Stanford Training Area (STANTA), which was created in 1942 by evacuating six villages.

[2] To the south of the stream is Manor Farm, a Grade II listed building dating from the sixteenth century, although extended and refaced over the following 200 years.

[4] The course continues to the west, passing the Grade I listed Huntingfield Hall farmhouse, again dating from the sixteenth century, but with nineteenth-century alterations,[5] and then flowing along the northern edge of Bradenham.

It is Grade I listed, and includes moulded brick monograms belonging to John and Elizabeth Jenny, who bought the house in 1542.

[13] The river passes Langford Church, a Grade I listed medieval building containing a monument to Sir Nicholas Garrard, which was designed by Christopher Horsnaile senior in baroque style in 1727.

[14] A tributary, which rises near Merton and flows through a large lake called Stanford Water, joins the Wissey from the east.

[16] The River Gadder, which rises to the north-east of Cockley Cley, and its distributary, the Oxborough Drain, enter the Wissey on its north bank.

[17] Below the village is the junction with the Cut-off Channel, a 28-mile (45 km) drain running from Barton Mills on the River Lark to Denver along the south-eastern edge of the Fens, which was constructed in the 1950s and 1960s.

[19] At Hilgay, the Cut-off Channel passes very close to the river, with Snowre Hall, a 15th-century building containing some of the earliest domestic brickwork in England on its northern bank.

The final landmark before the junction with the Great Ouse is the railway bridge carrying the Ely to King's Lynn line over the river.

Land to the north of the river from Stringside Drain to its mouth is managed by the Stoke Ferry Internal Drainage Board.

The Wissey is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, when it was navigable from "Oxenburgh" to King's Lynn and Cambridge, and there are remains of a medieval settlement near the river at Oxborough Ferry.

It was mentioned in 1575, when the Commissioners of Sewers, meeting at King's Lynn, ruled that it should be cleared and made wider between Stokebridge and Whittington, and that the bridge at Stoke Ferry should be repaired.

[27] There were wharfs at Oxborough Hithe in the 1750s, handling trade in coal and grain, and evidence of boathouses 1-mile (1.6 km) further upstream at Northwold.

Commissioners were appointed, who had responsibility for drainage in the parishes of Northwold, Stoke Ferry, Wereham, West Dereham and Wretton.

They were empowered to widen the river between Hilgay Creek's End and Stoke Bridge, with the cost being borne by local landowners.

The site was then requisitioned by the Ministry of Agriculture who used Italian prisoners of war to refurbish the railway and construct roads to the factory.

[19] Three tugs, named Hilgay, Littleport and Wissington were used to pull a fleet of 24 steel barges, which were used to take the beet to King's Lynn during the winter months and to bring coal in the reverse direction during the summer.

The reasons for the water quality being less than good include discharge from sewage treatment works, runoff of nutrients from agricultural land, and physical modification of the channel, which inhibits the free movement of fish in particular.

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) and perfluorooctane sulphonate (PFOS), neither of which had previously been included in the assessment.