The Limb Brook is a stream in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the north, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north-east, Lincolnshire ...

, England. It rises at the village of Ringinglow, flowing east through

Whirlow Whirlow is a suburb of the City of Sheffield in England, it lies south-west of the city centre. The suburb falls within the Dore and Totley ward of the City. It is one of the most affluent areas of Sheffield, with much high class housing and ...

and Ecclesall Woods into Abbeydale in the Beauchief area, where it merges with the

River Sheaf The River Sheaf in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, flows northwards, past Dore, through Abbeydale and north of Heeley. It then passes into a culvert, through which it flows under the centre of Sheffield before joining the River Don. Thi ...

. Near this point part of the stream has been diverted to provide the

goit A leat (; also lete or leet, or millstream) is the name, common in the south and west of England and in Wales, for an artificial watercourse or Aqueduct (watercourse), aqueduct dug into the ground, especially one supplying water to a watermill ...

for the

Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet is an industrial museum in the south of the Sheffield, City of Sheffield, England. The museum forms part of a former steel-working site on the River Sheaf, with a history going back to at least the 13th century. It c ...

millpond, and this channel flows through what is now Beauchief Gardens.

History

On nearby Fulwood Lane a polished Neolithic stone axehead was found in 1952 indicating ancient human activity in the area. An interim report by

University of Sheffield The University of Sheffield (informally Sheffield University or TUOS) is a public university, public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Its history traces back to the foundation of Sheffield Medical School in 1828, Fir ...

staff on excavations of a linear feature at Sheephill Farm, close to the brook has suggested evidence of the route of the lost

Roman Road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

linking

Templeborough Templeborough (historically Templebrough) is a suburb of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England. The suburb falls within the Brinsworth and Catcliffe ward of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council. The area takes its name from the remains of the ...

with the Roman Signal Station at Navio and

Batham Gate Batham Gate is the medieval name for a Roman road in Derbyshire, England, which ran south-west from Templebrough on the River Don in South Yorkshire to Brough-on-Noe (Latin '' Navio'') and the spa town of Buxton (Latin ''Aquae Arnemetiae'') in ...

. The feature, which extends through Barber Fields is 20m wide and filled to a depth of 5m with rubble and has a metalled surface. The route of the Roman Road would have passed close to the

Roman Villa A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house in the territory of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions. Nevertheless, the term "Roman villa" generally covers buildings with the common ...

known to have existed at nearby Whirlow Hall Farm. Limb Brook lies entirely within the

City of Sheffield The City of Sheffield is a metropolitan borough with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in South Yorkshire, England. The metropolitan borough includes the administrative centre of Sheffield, the town of Stocksbridge and the larger ...

boundaries, but forms (with the connecting

and Meers Brook) part of the historic border between Yorkshire and Derbyshire. This boundary dates back to the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

kingdoms of

Mercia Mercia (, was one of the principal kingdoms founded at the end of Sub-Roman Britain; the area was settled by Anglo-Saxons in an era called the Heptarchy. It was centred on the River Trent and its tributaries, in a region now known as the Midlan ...

and

Northumbria Northumbria () was an early medieval Heptarchy, kingdom in what is now Northern England and Scottish Lowlands, South Scotland. The name derives from the Old English meaning "the people or province north of the Humber", as opposed to the Sout ...

. Sidney Oldall Addy, in his 1888 book on the Sheffield dialect mentions that this stream is called Fenny Brook on the Ordnance Survey map, where it flows past Ringinglow. AddySO1888plxvii

The brook has long been used as a source of power for local industry; remains of water-powered mills used variously for smelting lead and grinding corn can be seen at Whirlow Wheel and Ryecroft Mill in Ecclesall Woods. Historical evidence of shallow coal drift-mining of the Ringinglow seam which lies on top of the Chatsworth Grit has been found in the Barber Fields area. The workings extended beneath the watercourse. Stratigraphically this was the lowest coal seam ever worked in the Sheffield area. The mine was served by a short railway which, along with the mine is no more. All that remains is a spoil-heap on the North bank of the brook. The mine is one of the few known examples of a shallow drift to have been worked by a small number of men in the Sheffield area. Close to the drift-mine was a copperas works. This was disused by 1877. Today, the brook no longer supports any industry, but with the woodlands of the Limb valley provides a valuable recreational resource for the inhabitants of Sheffield. It is owned and administered by the

city council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, borough counc ...

's recreation department, who maintain the area for the benefit of wildlife and the public. Sheffield Round Walk follows almost the entire route of the Limb brook, from Abbeydale Road South to Ringinglow.

Flora and fauna

Limb Brook rises in a sphagnum moss bog by the side of Ringinglow Road and then flows through Lady Canning's Plantation, a coniferous woodland, managed by Sheffield City Council Parks and Countryside Service. It then flows slowly through farmland, where it provides an environment for reeds and sedges. As it descends into the Limb valley and down through Ecclesall Woods, it is surrounded by steep hillsides which support mature woodland, including

Beech Beech (genus ''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to subtropical (accessory forest element) and temperate (as dominant element of Mesophyte, mesophytic forests) Eurasia and North America. There are 14 accepted ...

Sycamore Sycamore is a name which has been applied to several types of trees, but with somewhat similar leaf forms. The name derives from the Ancient Greek () meaning . Species of otherwise unrelated trees known as sycamore: * ''Acer pseudoplatanus'', a ...

Alder Alders are trees of the genus ''Alnus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The genus includes about 35 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, a few reaching a large size, distributed throughout the north temperate zone with a few species ex ...

, Ash and

Hazel Hazels are plants of the genus ''Corylus'' of deciduous trees and large shrubs native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The genus is usually placed in the birch family, Betulaceae,Germplasmgobills Information Network''Corylus''Rushforth, K ...

. This is a rich environment for invertebrates and many birds and mammals, including

kingfisher Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly coloured birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species living in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, ...

s and water voles. The rare

white-clawed crayfish ''Austropotamobius pallipes'' is an endangered European freshwater crayfish, and the only crayfish native to the British Isles. Its common names include white-clawed crayfish and Atlantic stream crayfish. Distribution It is found from the easter ...

has also been seen. In 2023 Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust built 50 'leaky dams' to help reduce flooding lower down the valley. Above the brook over 13,000 trees were planted at Rough Standhills to create a new woodland to replace the larch plantation lost to

Phytophthora ramorum ''Phytophthora ramorum'' is the oomycete known to cause the disease sudden oak death (SOD). The disease kills oak and other species of trees and has had devastating effects on the oak populations in California and Oregon, as well as being present ...

disease.

References

External links

The Sheffield Round Walk
- Sheffield City Council
Limb Valley Nature Trail Introduction
1995, A. H. V. Smith (ed), published by The Sorby Record {{authority control Rivers of Sheffield