The River Sheaf is a river in 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 Abbeydale and north of Heeley, and then through the centre of Sheffield, where it is culverted. It re-emerges above ground at Lady's Bridge where it joins the River Don. Historically, the Sheaf—along with its tributaries the Meers Brook and the Limb Brook—formed part of the border between between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria, it remained on the border between Yorkshire and Derbyshire into the Twentieth Century.
The city of Sheffield derives its name from the Sheaf.
The river has been polluted upstream through centuries of industrial activity, including iron and steel working, and is only slowly recovering. Along the river can be seen the Grade 1 listed Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet and Beauchief Abbey.
The low grounds adjoining the rivers have a soil formed chiefly of the alluvial matter washed from the surrounding higher grounds: those on the banks of the Ouse are most remarkable for their fertility.
The river Aire is the eastern boundary of the clothing district, which extends over the country thence to the mountain ridge separating this county from that of Lancaster.
The principal rivers are, the Northern Ouse (so called to distinguish it from the Ouse of Buckinghamshire), the Swale, the Ure, the Wharfe, the Derwent, the Aire, the Calder, the Don, the Hull, the Tees, and the Esk, all of which, except the two latter, pour their waters through the great æstuary of the Humber.
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