Porter Brook
The Porter Brook is a river which flows through the City of Sheffield, England, descending over from its source on Burbage Moor to the west of the city to its mouth where it joins the River Sheaf in a culvert beneath Sheffield railway station. Like the other rivers in Sheffield, its steep gradient made it ideal for powering water mills and works associated with the metalworking and cutlery industries, and around 20 dams were constructed over the centuries to facilitate this. At its lower end, it is extensively culverted, but parts of it are gradually being restored to open channels, as part of a daylighting scheme for the city.
The brook derives its name from its brownish colour, similar to the colour of Porter beer.
Route
Porter Valley
Beyond Fulwood Lane the brook flows into the Porter valley. The valley is divided into a series of five green and open spaces, created along the river valley between 1885 and 1938 and collectively known as the Porter Valley Parks.Just before it reaches the bridge carrying Woodcliffe over it, the river is joined by Mayfield Brook, which rises at a similar level but a little further to the north. Before the junction, Mayfield Brook supplied power to Fulwood corn mill, the highest mill on the system. Soon the combined flow reaches Forge Dam, now a large lake with an island. In Sheffield, "dam" referred to the body of water, rather than the structure which impounded it. Mills used for grinding were known as wheels, and the tail race was known as a goit.
Beyond Forge Dam, where the Porter is defined as a main river, the brook passes Wire Mill Dam, where there is a monument celebrating the life of Thomas Boulsover, the inventor of Sheffield Plate. The grade II listed structure was constructed in 1927 by a Master Cutler called David Flather, and may have been built from materials taken from the Wire Mill. Below Whiteley Wood Road bridge it is joined by a small tributary, flowing northwards from springs in the Porter Valley Woodlands Local Nature Reserve. Next it reaches Hangingwater Road bridge, a massive structure built around 1800, with two small segmental arches. Immediately below the bridge is the dam for Shepherd Wheel, with the buildings at its downstream end. The dam, goit, buildings and weir are grade II* listed, as internally, the machinery is complete and still operational. The site is run as a museum.
The river continues through Whiteley Woods, passing Ibbotson dam before crossing under Oakbrook Road and back again to reach Nether Spurgear dam. Oak Brook flows southwards from the grounds of Tapton Hall to join the north bank, and Holme dam is close to the river as it enters Endcliffe Wood. of land in Endcliffe Woods, at the eastern end of the linear park, was bought by Sheffield Corporation in 1885, to create public walks and pleasure grounds, but they also had another motive. The river at the time was a serious health risk, as sewage from newly built houses to the north of the river was flowing into the channel. Once they owned the woods, they were able to build a sewer through it. They then asked William Goldring to create a public park in the woods, which included gravelled paths, flower beds, ornamental shrubberies, rustic bridges, seating and a refreshment room. Several dams were repurposed, with Endcliffe dam used for bathing, Holme dam for skating, and Nether Spurgear dam for wildfowl.
In 1924, Sheffield's commitment to public spaces was recognised by Patrick Abercrombie in his Civic Survey, where he described the Porter Valley parks as "the finest example to be found in this country of a radial park strip, an elongated open space, leading from a built-up part of the city direct into the country."
Inner city
At the eastern end of Endcliffe Park the river is crossed by the B6069 Brocco Bank road, close to the roundabout on Ecclesall Road, now the A625. Ecclesall Road became a toll road in 1810, and the toll gate is situated in the centre of the roundabout, although it is not in its original location, as it was moved in the early 20th century. Beyond Brocco Bank is a small bridge built in 1899 to serve the George Woofindin almshouses, arranged in a crescent on the north side of the river. The river then enters a section of culvert, to emerge on the south side of Ecclesall Road, and weaves its way between housing to reach Sharrow Vale dam and snuff mill. The main building, dating from 1737 onwards, straddles the river, with a newer building dating from 1880 to the north, containing the original machinery which was still in use in 2004. At the eastern end of the buildings is a bridge dating from the late 18th century.The river then runs parallel to Ecclesall Road along the north-western edge of Sheffield General Cemetery. The main gateway, built in Greek Revival style by the Sheffield architect Samuel Worth in 1836, incorporates a lodge on either side, and the whole structure is built on an elongated bridge across the river. After passing under Pear Street and Summerfield Street, it enters a site which was Ward's Brewery until it closed in 1999. It has been redeveloped as housing, although the original entrance arch has been retained. The river then enters the Waitrose culvert, which carries it under Harrow Street and a Waitrose supermarket. It appears again near the former Sheffield Union Banking Co building, which in 2021 was the Baan Thai Restaurant, before the St Marys Gate culvert takes it under London Road and the A61 St Mary's Gate. There is a short exposed section by the Theatre Deli car park and the Eyre Street culvert then passes under Eyre Street and the Decathlon sports shop, before the river re-emerges on the north side of Mary Street. It flows under Matilda Street Bridge, through the new Matilda Street Pocket Park and behind the BBC offices on Shoreham Street, before entering the Shoreham Street culvert beneath Leadmill Road and the A61 road. It surfaces briefly to run along the back edge of Sheffield Station car park, and enters the station culvert, which joins the culvert carrying the River Sheaf beneath the station platforms. The junction is beneath platform 5A, where there is a wooden access cover.
Physical modification
The river channel has been heavily modified over centuries. This has included the construction of dams to impound water for milling and metal working. The earliest mentions are of Shepherd Wheel, possibly in 1566 and certainly in 1584, while Mayfield corn mill on Mayfield Brook is mentioned in 1641. Expansion took place in the 18th century, and by 1780 there were 20 mills, with no obvious locations left where others could be built. Weirs were built with no thought for the ecology of the river, and while most were constructed to feed water into a dam at the side of the channel, the Fullwood mill impounded the whole of the flow of Mayfield Brook, as did Forge mill on the Porter Brook.Below its junction with the River Sheaf, the tunnels which carry the combined waters under Sheffield Station and the Castlegate area have been celebrated by urban explorers and include a huge cavern known as the 'Megatron'. However, a significant proportion of the Porter Brook is also heavily culverted as it meets the city. The river in the vicinity of Matilda Street was rerouted into a new straight channel between 1797 and 1808, bypassing several meanders. The channel was still open in 1832, as shown by Taylor's map of Sheffield, but when the first Ordnance Survey map of the area was published in 1853, parts of the Porter Brook had been culverted, to allow housing and industrial buildings to be built. This included a bone mill, and later a timber yard, with further sections having been culverted by 1891 to accommodate industrial expansion.
Sheffield station opened in 1870, and was built over an area previously known as Sheaf Island, as it was hemmed in by the River Sheaf to the east, the Porter Brook cross link to the Sheaf to the south, and an unnamed dam, Bamford Dam and Pond Forge dam to the west. Both rivers had been diverted in the late 1700s, as the Bamford dam was built over the redundant course of the Sheaf, and around 1778 the Porter Brook was diverted along a cross link which ran due east to a new junction with the Sheaf. The Midland Railway bought the water rights in 1868, and effectively closed down Pond Forge. Both rivers were culverted to enable the construction of the station to proceed, and the cross link became the main channel of the Porter Brook when the dams were later filled in.
The Porter Brook is prone to flooding within the city, because it has been hemmed in to narrow channels between buildings, and passes through culverts that are of inadequate size for storm flows. Sheffield began to research the concepts of de-culvering or daylighting rivers in 2008, but found that while there were a significant number of documented projects, there were very few where the outcomes of the daylighting were critically assessed. They set about collecting such information through a web-based approach. In 2011 they embarked on two daylighting projects on the Porter Brook, one rural and one urban. The headwaters had been culverted in Victorian times, and these had been daylighted by 2013. The urban project was at Matilda Street, and took rather longer to complete, not being finished until 2016.
The chosen site is in Sheffield's Cultural Industries Quarter, close the buildings used by BBC Sheffield and the University Technical College on Shoreham Street. The river was in a channel with vertical sides, with steel beams running over it, before it disappeared into the Shoreham Street culvert. To the north was an area of derelict land, used for car parking, and the area was overgrown. A semi-circular amphitheatre was created, leading down to the river. A chance meeting been the landscape architect Sam Thorn and Paul Gaskell of the Wild Trout Trust near the start of the project led to a rethinking of how the river would be handled, and resulted in it being re-naturalised, rather than beautified. The pocket park has two main functions, for as well as providing public green space within an area of the city which has few such facilities, it is also designed to flood under storm conditions, slowing down the progress of water further downstream. Funding came from the council's City Centre Breathing Spaces programme, the South Yorkshire Forest Partnership, the Environment Agency Local Levy, because of its flood defence aspect, and the European Union under the Interreg IVB SEEDS project, which funded the feasibility study.
The project was announced as the winner in the Contribution to the Built Environment’ category at the 2016 Living Waterways Awards ceremony, held by the Canal and River Trust in Birmingham Town Hall on 14 September 2016. While the pocket park only covers of the river, the council are negotiating with other landowners and looking at redevelopment of some sites to extend the length of river that is improved. There are also proposals to create a walking and cycle route that follows the course of the river. One possible redevelopment site is Decathlon Sportswear, where part of the car park is unusable because the roof of the culvert collapsed into the river in January 2017.
Major engineering work took place at Endcliffe Park in 2004-5, to reduce the impact of overflows from the sewage system under storm conditions, and to reduce the likelihood of flooding on the lower river. In September 2014 Sheffield City Council announced plans for a flood alleviation scheme on the Porter Brook and its tributary the Mayfield Brook. It was planned to create floodwater storage areas at Mayfield, Whiteley Woods and Endcliffe Park while parts of the watercourse would be contained by walled defences downstream of Endcliffe Park. The work on the Porter Brook and the Sheaf was costed at £12.4 million, and was part of a larger project costing £56 million. Work started in 2015, and was expected to be completed in 2021.