The Meers Brook is a brook 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 ...

, England, and one of the main tributaries of 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 ...

. It originates in

Gleadless Gleadless () is a suburb and parish A Church Near You.
Parish Map. within the City ...

and flows downhill through Gleadless Valley and

Meersbrook Meersbrook () is a neighbourhood of the Heeley area in the south-west of Sheffield, England, 2 miles south of the city centre and bordered by Norton Lees to the south and the Meersbrook allotment site (the largest allotment site in Europe) to ...

then, culverted, continues underneath

Heeley Heeley was a cluster of small villages which now form a suburb in the south of the city of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The village has existed at least since 1343, its name deriving from ''Heah Leah'', ''High Lea'' then ''Hely'', mea ...

to pour into the River Sheaf near Saxon Road and Clyde Road.

Course

The river starts at a spring west of Gleadless Townend, close to some allotment gardens, and heads in a west-north-westerly direction, passing through Herdings Wood north of Herdings, which is part of the Gleadless Valley area of Sheffield. In the woods it is joined by another small stream. South of Rollestone, it is joined by a stream that rises in Hemsworth, and flows northwards through wooded terrain, which joins onto Rollestone Wood. After passing under Blackstock Road, it is joined by another stream, which rises in Buck Wood, Newfield Green, and flows in a south-westerly direction. A series of streams rise in Leeshall Wood, and combine before joining Meers Brook near the Rollestone recycling centre. The river used to flow around the northern edge of the recycling site and across open land bordered on the northern side by High Bank Wood, and to the south by Car Wood, but it has been culverted in this area.Ordnance Survey, 1:2500 map Near the end of the culvert, it is joined by a stream which rises near Norton Woodseats sports ground, from where it flows northwards. The stream flows under Cat Lane to join Meers Brook, and then both flow under Cat Lane again, along the northern edge of Meersbrook allotment gardens, and under Carfield Lane. There is then a short section where it forms the boundary between gardens on Northcote Avenue and Meersbrook Road, before it disappears into a culvert where Northcote Avenue, Meersbrook Road and Albert Road meet. Before the culvert was built, the stream ran along the bottom of gardens on Albert Road, passed under Brooklyn Road, passed the north end of Molloy Street,Ordnance Survey, 1:2500 map, 1956 and then flowed around Joseph Tyzack's saw works. The building dates from the 1880s and was constructed of red bricks, although modifications were made in the 20th century. Tyzack made saws there until the mid-20th century, after which the works, offices and salesroom were reused as workshops. The building is

grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

. The river marked the end of Bradbury Street and Arlington Road, and then passed under houses on London Road and Heeley railway sidings serving a goods depot, and the main line into

Sheffield railway station Sheffield station (formerly Pond Street and later Sheffield Midland) is a combined railway station and tram stop in Sheffield, England; it is the busiest station in South Yorkshire, and the second busiest in Yorkshire & the Humber, after Leed ...

, before it joined the Sheaf near Saxon Road.

History

Historically the stream formed the boundary between the historic counties of

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

and

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...

, and may have formed part of the boundary between the ancient kingdoms of

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 ...

and

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 ...

. In 1957, the section from Albert Road to the railway culvert was enclosed in a culvert. The scheme was planned by the city engineer, H. Foster, and was designed to reduce flooding of homes in Heeley and Meersbrook, and to carry additional water away from new housing in the Gleadless Valley. The culvert was about long, and although it broadly followed the existing line of the river, the bends were ironed out where possible, providing a much straighter course. At the start, it ran through concrete pipes which were in diameter, but then ran through rectangular castings of various sizes. As part of the work, the original culvert under Chesterfield Road and the railway was strengthened. The drop in level of the river bed between the two ends of the culvert was handled by constructing several staircases, down which the water flowed. The culvert was designed to take a maximum flow of per minute.

Water quality

The Environment Agency measure water quality of the river systems in England. Each is given an overall ecological status, which may be one of five levels: high, good, moderate, poor and bad. There are several components that are used to determine this, including biological status, which looks at the quantity and varieties of

invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...

angiosperm Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed within a fruit ...

s and fish. Chemical status, which compares the concentrations of various chemicals against known safe concentrations, is rated good or fail. The Environment Agency do not publish separate data for Meers Brook, but the river is included as part of the River Sheaf data. Water quality was as follows in 2019. The river is only rated moderate for ecological status because the channel has been heavily modified by human activity. Like many rivers in the UK, the chemical status changed from good to fail in 2019, because of the presence of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE), perfluorooctane sulphonate (PFOS) and mercury compounds, none of which had previously been included in the assessment.

Bibliography

References

{{authority control Rivers of Sheffield fr:Meersbrook