River Sheaf

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The River Sheaf is a river in Sheffield, 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 if flows under the centre of Sheffield emerging from time to time until 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.

Until the seventeenth century the name Sheaf was written as Scheth or Sheath^[1]. Addy (1888)^[1] equates the origins of this word with the Old English shed (as in water-shed) or sheth, which mean to divide, or separate. Historically, the Sheaf—along with its tributaries the Meers Brook and the Limb Brook—formed part of the border separating the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria; it remained on the border between Yorkshire and Derbyshire into the 20th century.

The city of Sheffield derives its name from the Sheaf. The main tributaries of the Sheaf are the Porter Brook 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.^[2]

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} Addy, Sidney Oldall (1888). A Glossary of Words Used in the Neighbourhood of Sheffield. Including a Selection of Local Names, and Some Notices of Folk-Lore, Games, and Customs. London: Trubner & Co. for the English Dialect Society, pp. xxix–xxx. 
2. ^ Sheaf Valley Walk. Sheffield City council (2005-06-13). Retrieved on January 11, 2006.

	Waterways in Sheffield
River Don | River Sheaf | Porter Brook | River Loxley | River Rivelin Blackburn Brook | Car Brook | Limb Brook | Little Don | Meers Brook Old Hay Brook | Owler Brook | Totley Brook | River Rother | Wyming Brook Sheffield Canal | Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation