The River Sheaf is a river in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Its source is the union of the Totley Brook and the Old Hay Brook in Totley, now a suburb of Sheffield. It flows northwards, past Dore, through the valley called Abbeydale (so named because of Beauchief Abbey, which overlooks it) and north of Heeley. It then passes into a culvert, through which it flows under the centre of Sheffield emerging just once before joining the River Don near Blonk Street Bridge. This lower section of the River Sheaf together with the River Don, between the present Blonk Street and Lady's Bridges, formed two sides of the boundary of Sheffield Castle.
The main tributaries of the Sheaf are the Porter Brook, which joins it beneath Sheffield Midland station, and the Meers Brook. The river has been polluted upstream through centuries of industrial activity, including iron and steel working, and is only slowly recovering. The river used to provide the power for a number of metal works, an important surviving example of which is the Grade 1-listed Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet.
A Sheaf Valley Walk is being developed that will follow the river from Granville Square out to Millhouses Park and beyond to the Peak District.
Read more about River Sheaf: Name, Course, Points of Interest, Bibliography
Famous quotes containing the word river:
“This spirit it was which so early carried the French to the Great Lakes and the Mississippi on the north, and the Spaniard to the same river on the south. It was long before our frontiers reached their settlements in the West, and a voyageur or coureur de bois is still our conductor there.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)