Glossary

The open data standard and registry used by UK grant funders, from the National Lottery to local trusts, to publish who they have given money to, how much and for what. Our community funding pages use its GrantNav data to show grants made to Sheffield organisations.

One of Sheffield's longest-running modern breweries, founded in 1996 in Heeley, best known for its pale ale Moonshine, which is on the bar in a large share of the city's pubs. It also runs the Rising Sun at Nether Green and the Devonshire Cat in the city centre.

Wikipedia: Abbeydale Brewery

A preserved water-powered scythe and steel works on the River Sheaf at Abbeydale, dating largely from the eighteenth century, with tilt hammers, a grinding hull, workers' cottages and one of the last surviving crucible steel furnaces. Run as a museum by Sheffield Museums, with regular working days.

Wikipedia: Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet

Octopus Energy's electricity tariff whose price changes every half hour, following the wholesale market, published a day ahead. It is cheapest overnight and at midday when renewables are plentiful, and most expensive from 4pm to 7pm. Our energy page shows the day's Agile prices for the Yorkshire region alongside grid carbon intensity.

The East End district along Attercliffe Road and the Lower Don Valley that was the heart of Sheffield's heavy steel industry, home to firms such as Brown Bayley and Firth Brown. The works closed through the 1980s and the valley was rebuilt around Meadowhall, Sheffield Arena, the Don Valley Stadium (now demolished) and, more recently, the Olympic Legacy Park. A mix of history and regeneration, with the canal and Five Weirs Walk running through it.

The sweet maker founded by George Bassett in Sheffield in 1842, famous for Liquorice Allsorts, said to have been invented in 1899 when a salesman dropped his tray of samples, and Jelly Babies. The Owlerton factory, now owned by Mondelez under the Maynards Bassetts name, still makes them in the city.

Wikipedia: Bassett's

Home of Sheffield United, on the south side of the city centre. It opened as a cricket ground in 1855, staged Yorkshire county cricket until 1973, hosted one of the first floodlit football matches in 1878, and is generally held to be the oldest major stadium in the world still hosting professional football.

Wikipedia: Bramall Lane

The Sheffield name for a soft bread roll, the thing a chip butty or a bacon sandwich is served in. Ask for a bap, a cob, a barm or a teacake and you will be understood, but breadcake marks you out as local. What a breadcake is called is one of the great regional arguments of the north.

The women who polished finished cutlery and silverware on buffing wheels, one of the dirtiest and best-known jobs in the Sheffield trades. Wrapped in brown paper aprons and headscarves against the grease and dust, they were famous for their toughness and their singing. Sheffield's Women of Steel statue in Barker's Pool honours the women who worked the steelworks in the two world wars.

Wikipedia: Buffer girls

How much carbon dioxide is emitted for each unit of electricity generated, measured in grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour. The National Energy System Operator publishes a live and forecast figure for Great Britain and for each region; it is low when wind and solar are strong and high when gas is filling the gap. We show the Yorkshire figure so you can pick greener times to run the washing.

Wikipedia: Carbon intensity

The oldest part of Sheffield, at the meeting of the rivers Don and Sheaf where Sheffield Castle stood until it was demolished after the Civil War. Mary, Queen of Scots was held there for much of her fourteen years of custody under the Earl of Shrewsbury. Castle Market covered the site from the 1960s until it was demolished in 2015, and the area is now being opened up as a park, with the River Sheaf brought back into daylight and the castle remains displayed.

Wikipedia: Castlegate

Creative Commons Attribution, the open licence that lets anyone reuse a work, including commercially, as long as they credit the author. Several of the datasets and images we use are CC BY or CC BY-SA, the share-alike version that requires derived works to carry the same licence.

The official register of charities in England and Wales, published as open data by the Charity Commission, listing every registered charity's purposes, trustees, income and area of operation. Our charities section is drawn from the register entries that cover Sheffield.

Wikipedia: Charity Commission register

A seasoned salt, paprika-red and slightly sweet, shaken over chips. It is really a Hull invention, sold as American Chip Spice since the 1970s and 1980s, but it has spread to chip shops across Yorkshire including some in Sheffield. Not to be confused with spice meaning sweets.

The tall Gothic spire on the hill above Norfolk Park and the station, in the Cholera Monument Grounds, commemorating the 402 people who died in the cholera epidemic of 1832 and were buried there. It was designed by M.E. Hadfield and completed in 1835. The grounds give one of the best views over the city centre.

Pleased, proud and happy: "I'm reyt chuffed with that". It is used across the north but is a staple of Sheffield speech. Chuffed to bits is the stronger form.

A free outdoor sports festival held in Sheffield's parks, built around climbing but also covering running, cycling, bouldering competitions and outdoor brands, reflecting the city's reputation as the outdoor capital of Britain. It has not run every year, so check listings.

The area that elects one Member of Parliament. Sheffield is covered by six: Central, Hallam, Heeley, South East, Brightside and Hillsborough, and Penistone and Stocksbridge, which straddles the Barnsley boundary. Boundaries were last redrawn for the 2024 general election.

Wikipedia: Constituency

The government's public register of contract opportunities and awards worth over a low threshold from central government, councils, the NHS and other public bodies in England. We use it to list what Sheffield's public bodies are buying and who has won the work.

Wikipedia: Contracts Finder

A hilltop suburb west of the city centre, above Crookes Valley Park and the university. Its terraces are popular with students and its high street of independent shops and pubs runs along Crookes itself. The name is Old Norse, from krokr, a nook or bend.

The process invented in Sheffield around 1740 by the clockmaker Benjamin Huntsman, who melted blister steel in clay crucibles to produce a uniform, high-quality steel for springs and tools. It made Sheffield the steel capital of the world for the next 150 years and gave the Crucible Theatre its name.

Wikipedia: Crucible steel

The headquarters of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire, the trade body chartered in 1624 to regulate the cutlery trades, opposite the cathedral on Church Street. The present hall dates from 1832. Each year the company elects a Master Cutler and holds the Cutlers' Feast, one of the city's grandest civic occasions.

Wikipedia: Cutlers' Hall

The reservoir at Low Bradfield in the Loxley valley north-west of the city, completed in 1896 and now used by Sheffield's sailing and rowing clubs, with a level 3.5-mile path around it. It sits a short way downstream of the site of the Dale Dyke Dam, whose collapse caused the Great Sheffield Flood of 1864.

Wikipedia: Damflask

The grassy park in the Devonshire Quarter, between Division Street and the ring road, with a skate area and a stepped amphitheatre. It hosted the main stage of Tramlines in the festival's early years and is still used for events and outdoor screenings. The surrounding streets, Division Street and Devonshire Street, are the city's independent shopping and bar quarter.

Wikipedia: Devonshire Green

The long road running south-west from the city centre towards Ecclesall and the Peak District, universally known as Eccy Road. Its lower half is lined with bars, restaurants, cafes and shops, and Endcliffe Park sits alongside it. One of the city's best-known streets for a night out.

Wikipedia: Ecclesall Road

About 350 acres of ancient woodland in the south-west of the city between Abbeydale Road and Ecclesall, the largest in Sheffield. The woods contain the remains of charcoal burners' platforms and Q-pits, the grave of a collier who died in 1786, and the Woodland Discovery Centre. Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet lies at the bottom edge.

Wikipedia: Ecclesall Woods

The park at the bottom of the Porter Valley beside Ecclesall Road, opened in 1887 to mark Queen Victoria's golden jubilee. A memorial marks the crash of the Mi Amigo, an American B-17 bomber, on 22 February 1944, when all ten crew died avoiding children playing in the park; Tony Foulds, one of those children, tended it for decades. The park is the start of the walk up the Porter Brook to Forge Dam.

Wikipedia: Endcliffe Park

The public body responsible for rivers, flooding, water quality and pollution in England. Its open data feeds give us river levels and flood warnings for the Don, Sheaf, Loxley, Rivelin and Porter, bathing and water quality results, and the records behind our storm overflow pages.

Wikipedia: Environment Agency

The all-purpose northern greeting: hello, watch out, look at this, or what's going on, depending on tone. "Ey up, love" is a standard Sheffield hello. Sometimes written ay up or eyup.

Sheffield's main pedestrian shopping street, running from the Town Hall and the Peace Gardens down towards High Street and the cathedral. It has been the centre of the city's retail life since the Victorian period, and hosts the Christmas Market every winter. The name is old, recorded by the sixteenth century, and means roughly the far street or road.

Wikipedia: Fargate

The Food Hygiene Rating Scheme score from 0 to 5 given by the Food Standards Agency after a council hygiene inspection, where 5 is very good and 0 means urgent improvement is required. Sheffield City Council does the inspections. We show the current rating for cafes, restaurants, pubs and takeaways in our directory and on the map.

Wikipedia: FHRS rating

The Sheffield way with a chippy tea: fish and chips with a shake of Henderson's Relish rather than, or as well as, vinegar. Some chip shops also offer chip spice. The chip butty in a breadcake is the budget alternative.

A five-mile riverside footpath and cycle route along the River Don from the Wicker in the city centre to Meadowhall, passing the five weirs that once served the steelworks of the Lower Don Valley. Built by a trust of volunteers from the 1980s, it opened up a river that had been walled off by industry.

Wikipedia: Five Weirs Walk

The mill pond and cafe at the top of the Porter Valley parks, about two miles' walk upstream from Endcliffe Park through Bingham Park and Whiteley Woods. The dam once powered a forge and was desilted and restored in the 2020s. The Porter Brook continues above it towards Ringinglow.

Wikipedia: Forge Dam

A narrow passage between or behind houses, often the alley that runs between two terraces. In Sheffield it is usually spelt gennel and pronounced with a soft g, as in jennel, while elsewhere in Yorkshire and Lancashire the same word is ginnel with a hard g. Both spellings are used on this site.

Give over: stop it, leave off, or, said with a laugh, I don't believe you. It is written a dozen ways, gi'o'er, gi'ower, gee-or, and heard everywhere from playgrounds to the Bramall Lane kop.

See gennel. Ginnel with a hard g is the spelling and pronunciation used in most of Yorkshire and Lancashire for a narrow passage between houses. In Sheffield the same passage is usually a gennel, with a soft g.

Sheffield's largest park, over 200 acres in the south of the city, given to the people by the mail-order magnate and alderman J.G. Graves between 1925 and 1936. It has a rare-breeds animal farm, woodland, playing fields and the Rose Garden Cafe.

Wikipedia: Graves Park

On the night of 11 March 1864 the newly built Dale Dyke Dam above Bradfield collapsed, sending an estimated 700 million gallons of water down the Loxley and Don valleys through Malin Bridge, Hillsborough, Neepsend and the Wicker. Around 240 people died and thousands of homes and works were destroyed. It remains one of the worst dam failures in British history.

Wikipedia: Great Sheffield Flood

The ancient district centred on Sheffield, roughly the old parishes of Sheffield, Ecclesfield and Bradfield, recorded from the Middle Ages as the lordship of Hallamshire. The name survives in the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire, the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield Hallam University and the Hallam parliamentary constituency.

Sheffield's own spicy, fruity, vegan condiment, made in the city since 1885 when Henry Henderson began selling it from Broad Lane. Similar in look to Worcestershire sauce but with no anchovies, it goes on pies, chips, stews, cheese on toast and, according to Sheffielders, everything. Made on Leavygreave Road until 2013 and now at a factory on the Sheffield Parkway. Universally known as Hendo's.

Wikipedia: Henderson's Relish

A suburb in the north-west of the city and, to most of the world, the home ground of Sheffield Wednesday since 1899. The stadium's name is also inseparable from the Hillsborough disaster of 15 April 1989, when a crush at the Leppings Lane end during the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest killed 97 people. A memorial stands outside the ground. Hillsborough Park next door hosts the main Tramlines stages each July.

The nickname for Castle Square, a sunken pedestrian roundabout with subways, shops and a famous fish tank, opened in 1967 at the junction of High Street, Angel Street and Arundel Gate. Loved and loathed in equal measure, it was filled in in 1994 to make way for Supertram. It survives in local memory, in Pulp lyrics and in countless nostalgic photographs.

Wikipedia: Hole in the Road

The Index of Multiple Deprivation, the government's official measure of relative deprivation for every LSOA in England, combining income, employment, health, education, crime, housing and living environment. The 2019 edition is the current one at the time of writing. Results are usually shown as a decile: decile 1 is the most deprived tenth of areas nationally, decile 10 the least. Sheffield has neighbourhoods at both extremes, often side by side.

Wikipedia: IMD

A protocol that lets a website tell search engines such as Bing immediately when a page has been added or changed, instead of waiting to be crawled. We ping IndexNow when events and articles are published so listings reach search results quickly.

Yet another word for a narrow alley between houses. Jitty is really a Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire word, and Sheffield people are more likely to say gennel, but it turns up in the south of the city and in the wider region.

A former industrial district just north of the city centre, on a man-made island between the River Don and a mill goit cut in the twelfth century to serve the town corn mill. For two centuries it was full of steelworks and workshops. Since the 1990s it has become Sheffield's best-known regeneration story, home to the Kelham Island Museum, the Fat Cat and Kelham Island Tavern pubs, breweries, Peddler Market, restaurants and converted works turned into flats. The Sunday Times named it one of the best places to live in Britain more than once.

The brewery started in 1990 by Dave Wickett in the garden of the Fat Cat, whose Pale Rider was Champion Beer of Britain in 2004. It closed in 2022 and the name and recipes were bought by Thornbridge, which brews Pale Rider again.

Wikipedia: Kelham Island Brewery

The industrial museum on Kelham Island, opened in 1982 in a former power station, telling the story of Sheffield's steel, tools and cutlery. Its star exhibit is the River Don Engine, a 12,000 horsepower steam engine built in 1905 to drive an armour-plate rolling mill, which is still run in steam for visitors. Little Mesters work in the museum's workshops.

Wikipedia: Kelham Island Museum

The small pub on Russell Street at Kelham Island that won CAMRA's National Pub of the Year in 2008 and again in 2009, the first pub to win twice in a row. It keeps a dozen or more real ales and has an award-winning beer garden.

Wikipedia: Kelham Island Tavern

A public data interface that can be called without registering for an access key or token. Where we can, this site is built on keyless APIs, such as those of the Environment Agency, the Charity Commission, the Food Standards Agency and OpenStreetMap, so that the data can be refreshed without accounts, secrets or quotas. Where a source needs a key we say so on the sources page.

The reservoir in the Upper Derwent Valley west of Sheffield, completed in 1945, which drowned the villages of Derwent and Ashopton. Its two round bellmouth overflows and the Ashopton viaduct are landmarks, and the Derwent Dam above it was used by 617 Squadron to practise for the Dambusters raid in 1943. A favourite Sheffield day out for walking and cycling.

Wikipedia: Ladybower

To play, from the Old Norse leika. Children laik out, a footballer laiks for a team, and if you are laiking you are off work or skiving. More common in the towns around Sheffield than in the city itself, but understood everywhere in South Yorkshire.

HM Land Registry's open dataset of every residential property sale in England and Wales since 1995, with the address, price, date and property type. It is published monthly under the Open Government Licence. Our housing and area pages use it for recent sales and median prices by neighbourhood.

Wikipedia: Land Registry price paid

The day-evening-night noise level, an averaged measure of environmental noise over 24 hours in decibels, with evening and night-time noise weighted more heavily because it is more annoying. Defra's strategic noise maps for roads and railways report it, and our area pages use it to show how noisy a neighbourhood is.

Wikipedia: Lden

The self-employed craftsmen at the heart of the Sheffield cutlery and tool trades: a mester (master) rented a workshop or a place at a grinding trough and did one stage of the work, forging, grinding, hafting or finishing, for whichever factor or firm would pay. The system made the city's reputation for quality and lasted from the seventeenth century into the twentieth. A few Little Mesters still work at Kelham Island Museum and in workshops such as Portland Works.

Used as a friendly form of address to almost anyone in Sheffield: "Y'alright, love?" from a bus driver, a shopkeeper or a stranger holding a door. It is not flirtatious and is used regardless of the sex or age of the person being spoken to. Duck plays the same role a little further south.

Lower layer Super Output Area, the small statistical area used by the Office for National Statistics for census and deprivation data. Each LSOA contains roughly 1,000 to 3,000 people, about 400 to 1,200 households. Sheffield has around 340 of them. Our neighbourhood and housing pages use LSOAs to show local figures such as deprivation and house prices.

Sulky, moody, whingeing or quick to take offence, usually said of children but applied cheerfully to adults too. "Stop being so mardy." It is widespread across Yorkshire and the East Midlands, and the Arctic Monkeys took it to the rest of the country with Mardy Bum in 2006.

To brew tea. "Mash the tea" or "is it mashed yet?" means let the tea steep. A Sheffield and South Yorkshire usage that puzzles visitors expecting potatoes.

The indoor shopping centre in the Lower Don Valley near junction 34 of the M1, opened in 1990 on the site of the former Hadfields steelworks. With around 280 shops it is one of the largest in the UK and has its own Supertram, train and bus interchange. Sheffielders who prefer the city centre call it Meadowhell.

Wikipedia: Meadowhall

The city's indoor market on the Moor, opened in 2013 to replace Castle Market, with butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers, bakers, international food stalls and a food court.

Wikipedia: Moor Market

Middle layer Super Output Area, the next size up from an LSOA, with roughly 5,000 to 15,000 people. Sheffield has about 70. MSOAs carry names from the House of Commons Library such as Crookes and Broomhill, which are the neighbourhood names we use on this site.

"Now then", a greeting or an attention-getter that can mean hello, hang on a minute, or right then let's get started, depending on delivery. Widely used across Yorkshire and the north Midlands.

The National Public Transport Access Nodes dataset, the Department for Transport's register of every bus stop, tram stop, railway station and ferry terminal in Great Britain, each with a unique code and a location. Our maps and transport pages use NaPTAN to place stops and to look up live departures.

The riverside district north of Kelham Island along Neepsend Lane, once dominated by the gasworks and the Wardsend area's industry. It has followed Kelham Island into new life with breweries, Yellow Arch Studios, Peddler Market's warehouse and a run of bars and venues. Historically it was hard hit by the 1864 flood.

Sheffield and wider northern word for someone who feels the cold too easily, or who is a bit soft and fragile in general. "Put a coat on, don't be nesh." It comes from the Old English hnesce, meaning soft or tender, and has survived in Sheffield speech long after dropping out of standard English.

Chilled through, frozen, shivering with cold. "I'm nithered" is the usual complaint waiting for a bus on a February night in Sheffield. Being nesh is being prone to feeling nithered.

One of the country's earliest public parks, opened in 1848 on land given by the Duke of Norfolk, on the hillside east of the station. Queen Victoria visited in 1897. Its avenues of trees and the neighbouring Cholera Monument Grounds give wide views back over the city.

Wikipedia: Norfolk Park

The large hospital on Herries Road in Fir Vale in the north of the city, home to Sheffield's main adult A&E, the region's major trauma centre and its heart and kidney services. Locals still call it the Northern.

Wikipedia: Northern General

Nothing. Its partner is owt, meaning anything: "there's nowt on" or "is there owt to eat?". "Nowt so queer as folk" is the proverb. Both come from the older English naught and aught, which the north kept when the south let them go.

The Open Database Licence, used by OpenStreetMap, which allows free use of a database as long as the source is credited and any improved database is shared under the same terms. Every map on this site is built on OpenStreetMap data and carries the required copyright credit.

Wikipedia: ODbL

The NHS Organisation Data Service, which gives every NHS organisation and site, from hospital trusts to GP practices, pharmacies and dentists, a unique ODS code. Our health pages use these codes to look up services and their published details.

Sheffield's festival of words, a literature and ideas festival run each October since 1991 by the city's two universities, with author talks, readings and events across the city.

Wikipedia: Off the Shelf

The sports, health and research campus in Attercliffe built on the site of the demolished Don Valley Stadium, with the English Institute of Sport next door. It is home to the Canon Medical Arena of the Sheffield Sharks, the community stadium used by Sheffield Eagles, and university research centres.

Wikipedia: Olympic Legacy Park

The Office for National Statistics, the UK's official statistics body, responsible for the census, population estimates, and much of the labour market and economic data we use. Its geographies, LSOAs, MSOAs and output areas, are the building blocks of our neighbourhood figures.

The licence under which most UK public sector data is released, allowing anyone to copy, publish, adapt and commercially use the information as long as the source is acknowledged. Version 3 is current. A great deal of what appears on this site is OGL data from councils, the ONS, the Environment Agency and government departments.

Wikipedia: Open Government Licence

The free, volunteer-built map of the world, edited by millions of contributors and released under the ODbL. Sheffield is one of the best-mapped cities in it. Our maps use OpenStreetMap tiles and data for everything from footpaths and benches to pubs and postboxes.

The huge concrete estate on the hill above Sheffield station, built between 1957 and 1961 as "streets in the sky", with wide deck-access walkways meant to keep the community life of the slum terraces it replaced. It declined badly in the 1980s and 1990s, was Grade II* listed in 1998 (making it the largest listed building in Europe), and has been progressively restored by Urban Splash and partners since the late 2000s. The "I love you will u marry me" graffiti on one bridge became a city emblem, and the estate inspired the musical Standing at the Sky's Edge.

Wikipedia: Park Hill

The dark, sticky Yorkshire gingerbread made with oatmeal, black treacle and golden syrup, traditionally eaten around Bonfire Night and best after a few days in the tin. Every Sheffield family has a recipe and an opinion.

Wikipedia: Parkin

The public garden beside the Town Hall in the heart of the city, laid out on the site of St Paul's Church and remodelled in 1998 as part of the Heart of the City project with fountains, water channels and the Goodwin Fountain. It is Sheffield's main outdoor gathering space, used for the Food Festival, Christmas events and sunny lunchtimes.

Wikipedia: Peace Gardens

A free, volunteer-run community festival held in early summer at the Ponderosa park in Upperthorpe, with music stages, workshops and family activities, raising money for local causes.

A thin, floppy crumpet, cooked free-form on a griddle without a ring so it spreads out. Toasted and buttered, it is a Sheffield and Midlands teatime staple, and the word is used here for what the south calls a crumpet.

Wikipedia: Pikelet

The small river that runs from Burbage Moor down the Porter Valley through Forge Dam, Whiteley Woods and Endcliffe Park, then disappears into culverts under the city to join the Sheaf near the station. Its valley is Sheffield's most popular walk, and short stretches in the city centre have been reopened as pocket parks.

Wikipedia: Porter Brook

A cutlery works on Randall Street off Bramall Lane, built in 1879, where the first commercial stainless steel cutlery was made by R.F. Mosley around 1914. Saved from conversion to flats by a community share issue in 2013, it now houses small manufacturers, artists and craftspeople and is open on heritage days.

Wikipedia: Portland Works

The Sheffield postcode area, covering the city and a wide surrounding district including Rotherham, Barnsley, Chesterfield, Worksop and the Hope Valley. Sheffield itself is roughly S1 to S14, S17, S20, S35 and S36. Many of our lookups are by postcode district.

Wikipedia: Postcode area S

Three reservoirs high on the moors west of Lodge Moor, built between 1836 and 1854 to supply the city and now a popular walking and birdwatching spot. The moor beside them held a First World War training camp for the Sheffield City Battalion and later a prisoner-of-war camp. A conduit walk links Redmires to Rivelin.

The Sheffield way of saying "right", used mostly as an intensifier: "it were reyt good" means it was really good. Also written reet. Reyt good is one of the phrases most associated with the city.

A hamlet on the moorland edge south-west of the city, where the road from Ecclesall climbs onto the Peak District. The Norfolk Arms and the octagonal Round House, a toll house built in 1795, mark the spot, and it is the starting point for walks onto Burbage and Houndkirk moors.

Wikipedia: Ringinglow

The wooded valley of the River Rivelin on the north-west edge of the city, with the Rivelin Valley Nature Trail following the river past the remains of around twenty water-powered mills and their dams. Rivelin Valley Road is famous for its avenue of lime trees planted in 1906. Rivelin Dams reservoirs sit at the top of the valley below the moors.

Sheffield's main river, rising on the Pennine moors near Dunford Bridge and flowing through Stocksbridge, Hillsborough, Kelham Island and the East End before continuing to Rotherham, Doncaster and the Ouse at Goole. It powered the early steel industry, was heavily polluted for a century, and is now clean enough for salmon to return. The Five Weirs Walk follows it east from the city centre.

Wikipedia: River Don

The river of the Loxley valley in the north-west, flowing from Bradfield through Damflask to join the Rivelin at Malin Bridge and the Don at Owlerton. The 1864 flood tore down this valley. Local tradition claims Loxley as the birthplace of Robin Hood, Robin of Loxley.

Wikipedia: River Loxley

The river that gave Sheffield its name, flowing north from the Totley moors through Dore, Abbeydale and Heeley to join the Don at Castlegate. Much of its lower course was culverted under the station and Sheaf Street in the nineteenth century, and it is now being reopened to daylight as part of the Castlegate regeneration.

Wikipedia: River Sheaf

Self, as in mesen, thisen, hissen and theirsen for myself, yourself, himself and themselves. "Do it thisen" means do it yourself. It survives in Sheffield and across much of Yorkshire from older English forms.

Sheffield's festival of music, film and digital art, running since 2008, usually in the autumn, with screenings, gigs, talks and installations in venues around the city and a strong line in Sheffield's electronic music heritage.

The neighbourhood around Sharrow Vale Road, parallel to Ecclesall Road, known for its independent shops, delis, cafes and the regular Sharrow Vale Market street market. Hunters Bar roundabout marks its western end.

One of the UK's four assay offices, established by Act of Parliament in 1773 to hallmark silver made in Sheffield, and still operating from Hillsborough. Its mark was a crown until 1975 and has been a rose since. Sheffield plate, being fused rather than solid, was never hallmarked.

Wikipedia: Sheffield Assay Office

The German bombing raids of 12 and 15 December 1940, which killed around 660 people, destroyed much of the Moor, High Street and Angel Street, and hit the Marples Hotel where about 70 died in the cellar. The steelworks, the intended targets, were largely missed on the first night. Much of the post-war city centre was rebuilt on the bomb sites.

Wikipedia: Sheffield Blitz

The specialist children's hospital on Western Bank, run by its own trust, Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust, one of only a handful of stand-alone children's hospital trusts in England. It serves South Yorkshire and beyond, and its charity, The Children's Hospital Charity, is behind the city's bear sculpture trails.

Wikipedia: Sheffield Children's Hospital

The city centre Christmas market of wooden chalets that runs along Fargate and Pinstone Street from mid-November to Christmas Eve, with food, drink, gifts and a bar area, alongside the Christmas lights and events in the Peace Gardens.

The 12th (Service) Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment, a First World War pals battalion raised in the city in 1914 and trained at Redmires. It was cut to pieces on the first day of the Somme, 1 July 1916, at Serre, with over 500 casualties in the morning. The memorial park at Serre is twinned with the city.

Wikipedia: Sheffield City Battalion

The local authority for the city, with 84 councillors elected from 28 wards, a third at a time in most years. Since 2022, after the It's Our City referendum, it has been run through a committee system rather than a leader and cabinet. The council runs planning, schools, social care, libraries, parks, bins and the city's parks and open data, from the Town Hall on Pinstone Street.

Wikipedia: Sheffield City Council

The neoclassical concert hall on Barker's Pool, designed by E. Vincent Harris and opened in 1932. Its Oval Hall seats over 2,000 and hosts orchestral concerts, comedy and rock gigs; the Memorial Hall and ballroom are used for smaller events. The war memorial in front of it is the city's main remembrance site.

Wikipedia: Sheffield City Hall

The Sheffield International Documentary Festival, held every June since 1994 around the Showroom Cinema and venues across the city centre. It is one of the world's leading documentary festivals, with premieres, an industry market and free outdoor screenings.

Wikipedia: Sheffield DocFest

The city's professional rugby league club, founded in 1984, best remembered for beating Wigan to win the Challenge Cup at Wembley in 1998, one of the great cup upsets. After years without a settled home they now play at the Olympic Legacy Park in Attercliffe.

Wikipedia: Sheffield Eagles

A free food and drink festival in the city centre, usually over the late May bank holiday weekend, with street food, producers' stalls, chef demonstrations and a beer and gin area around the Peace Gardens and Fargate.

The heavy engineering firm on Brightside Lane in the Lower Don Valley, descended from the Vickers works, which casts and forges some of the largest steel components in the world for nuclear, defence and power stations. It was bought outright by the Ministry of Defence in 2021 to secure supplies for the submarine programme.

Wikipedia: Sheffield Forgemasters

The city's second university, granted university status in 1992 after decades as Sheffield City Polytechnic, with around 30,000 students on its City Campus by the station and Collegiate Campus off Ecclesall Road. It is one of the largest universities in the country and a big employer.

Wikipedia: Sheffield Hallam University

The city's community broadcaster, with Sheffield Live! radio on 93.2 FM since 2007 and a local television channel, run from the city centre with volunteer presenters and a focus on Sheffield's communities and music.

A series of violent attacks in the 1850s and 1860s by members of Sheffield's craft trade unions against non-union workers and employers, including sabotage and gunpowder explosions, the most notorious in Hereford Street in 1866. The national scandal led to a Royal Commission in 1867 and, in turn, to the laws that gave trade unions legal recognition.

Wikipedia: Sheffield Outrages

A way of fusing a thin layer of silver onto copper so the sheet could be worked like solid silver, discovered by the Sheffield cutler Thomas Boulsover around 1743. It made candlesticks, teapots and tableware affordable for a century until electroplating replaced it in the 1840s. Genuine Old Sheffield Plate is now collected.

Sheffield calls itself the real ale capital of the world, with dozens of breweries within the city boundary and a dense run of pubs around Kelham Island, Neepsend and the city centre. The Kelham Island Tavern, the Fat Cat, the Sheffield Tap and the Rutland Arms are usual starting points, and the beer festivals in autumn and spring are big dates.

Wikipedia: Sheffield real ale

A roughly 14-mile circular walk through the parks and woods of the south-west of the city, taking in Endcliffe Park, the Porter Valley to Forge Dam, Limb Valley, Ecclesall Woods, Beauchief, Graves Park and Meersbrook Park, mostly on green space. It can be done in a long day or in sections.

Wikipedia: Sheffield Round Walk

The city's professional basketball club, founded in 1994, several times British champions in their early years. Since 2023 they have played at the purpose-built Canon Medical Arena at the Olympic Legacy Park, having previously used Ponds Forge and the English Institute of Sport.

Wikipedia: Sheffield Sharks

The professional ice hockey club, founded in 1991 and one of the biggest crowd-pullers in British ice hockey, playing at the arena in the Lower Don Valley (currently Utilita Arena Sheffield). They have won the top-flight title many times and play in the Elite Ice Hockey League. Orange and black.

Wikipedia: Sheffield Steelers

The University of Sheffield's students' union on Western Bank, regularly voted the best in the country in student surveys. Its building houses the Foundry live music venue, the Octagon Centre next door, bars, a cinema and hundreds of societies. Sheffield Hallam has its own union, HallamSU.

Wikipedia: Sheffield Students' Union

The pub on platform 1B of Sheffield station, opened in 2009 in the restored Edwardian first-class refreshment rooms, which had stood derelict for decades. It has its own small brewery, Tapped Brew Co, in the old dining room and a long bar of cask and keg beers. The best-placed pub in the city for anyone with a train to catch.

Wikipedia: Sheffield Tap

The NHS foundation trust that runs the city's adult hospitals: the Northern General, the Royal Hallamshire, Weston Park Cancer Hospital, the Jessop Wing maternity hospital and the Charles Clifford Dental Hospital. One of the largest NHS trusts in England.

Wikipedia: Sheffield Teaching Hospitals

The weekly newspaper, founded in 1855 as the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, now published on Thursdays by National World alongside The Star, with a focus on longer features, arts and property.

Wikipedia: Sheffield Telegraph

The Blades, founded in 1889 by the cricket club at Bramall Lane, league champions in 1898 and four times FA Cup winners, most recently in 1925. In the modern era they have moved between the Premier League and the Championship several times. Red and white stripes, and the Blades nickname comes from the cutlery trade.

Wikipedia: Sheffield United

The Owls, one of the oldest football clubs in the world, founded in 1867 by the Wednesday Cricket Club and playing at Hillsborough since 1899. Four times league champions and three times FA Cup winners, all before the Second World War, they have spent recent decades between the second and third tiers. Blue and white stripes.

Wikipedia: Sheffield Wednesday

A small water-powered grinding workshop on the Porter Brook in Whiteley Woods, in use from at least the sixteenth century until the 1930s. Its wheel and grinding troughs were restored and reopened in 2012, and it is run by volunteers on open days. A rare survivor of the hundreds of such wheels that once lined Sheffield's rivers.

Wikipedia: Shepherd Wheel

"See thee", used to mean goodbye, see you later. Also used as "sithee here" to mean look here, or listen. One of the most affectionate bits of the Sheffield goodbye repertoire alongside ta-ra.

Food, especially a packed lunch taken to work. Miners and steelworkers carried their snap in a snap tin, and the word is still used across South Yorkshire for a sandwich or a bite to eat.

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Another word for a narrow footpath or cut-through between buildings or fields. It is more of a West and North Yorkshire word than a Sheffield one, but you will hear it here too, and it is interchangeable with gennel.

The directly elected mayor who chairs SYMCA. Dan Jarvis was the first, elected in 2018; Oliver Coppard, Labour, was elected in 2022 and re-elected in 2024. The mayor is also South Yorkshire's police and crime commissioner and led the return of Supertram to public control.

Wikipedia: South Yorkshire Mayor

Sweets. A bag of spice is a bag of sweets, and a spice shop is a sweet shop. The word is a Sheffield and South Yorkshire usage, and has nothing to do with heat or seasoning. Bassett's and Thornton's, both Sheffield firms, made a great deal of spice between them.

Rust-resistant chromium steel, first produced as a commercial alloy in Sheffield in 1913 by Harry Brearley at the Brown Firth research laboratories while looking for a better steel for gun barrels. He called it rustless steel. It transformed cutlery, and Sheffield still markets itself as the home of stainless.

Wikipedia: Stainless steel

The four-mile gritstone escarpment above Hathersage in the Peak District, a short drive or bus ride from Sheffield and one of the most famous climbing crags in the world. It is where generations of Sheffield climbers learned their craft, and where Keira Knightley stood in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice.

Wikipedia: Stanage Edge

The fixture between Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday, first played in 1890 and one of the fiercest rivalries in English football. Because the clubs are often in different divisions it can go years without being played, which only makes each meeting bigger. The city is split roughly down the middle.

Wikipedia: Steel City derby

A combined sewer overflow, where the sewer system releases untreated sewage mixed with rainwater into a river during heavy rain to stop it backing up into streets and homes. Water companies must now monitor every overflow with Event Duration Monitoring (EDM), which records how often and how long each one spills. Yorkshire Water publishes the results, and we show spills into the Don, Sheaf, Porter, Rivelin and Loxley.

Wikipedia: Storm overflow

Something. "There's summat up with it" or "summat and nowt", meaning a trivial thing not worth fussing over. Like nowt and owt it is a plain survival of older English rather than slang.

Sheffield's light rail network, opened between 1994 and 1995, with Blue, Yellow and Purple routes across the city and the tram-train service to Rotherham Parkgate that opened in 2018. Stagecoach operated it from 1997 until March 2024, when it returned to public control under SYMCA. Its lines run from Middlewood and Malin Bridge to Halfway, Herdings Park and Meadowhall.

Wikipedia: Supertram

The South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, which brings together Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster councils under the elected South Yorkshire Mayor. It is responsible for transport, including buses and Supertram, skills, economic development and housing strategy across the region. It was known as the Sheffield City Region Combined Authority until 2021 and absorbed SYPTE in 2022.

Wikipedia: SYMCA

The South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive, which planned and funded public transport in the county from 1974, including the famous cheap-fares policy of the 1970s and 1980s, and built Supertram. It was merged into SYMCA in 2022 and no longer exists as a separate body.

Wikipedia: SYPTE

Sheffield keeps the old second person singular pronoun: tha or thee for "you" and thi or thy for "your". "Tha knows" means you know, and "Sithee" means see you. It is friendly and informal, used between people who know each other. Sheffield's use of these forms earned locals the nickname dee-dahs from neighbouring towns, who heard "thee" and "tha" as dee and dah.

The nickname for the Charles Street multi-storey car park, opened in 2008 and wrapped in a folded steel mesh screen designed by Allies and Morrison. It won architecture awards and is one of the few car parks anyone photographs.

Wikipedia: The Cheesegrater

The Crucible Theatre on Tudor Square, opened in 1971 with a thrust stage where the audience sits on three sides. It is Sheffield Theatres' main house and, since 1977, the home of the World Snooker Championship each spring, which is how most of the world knows it. Not to be confused with crucible steel, the process that gave it its name.

The nickname for the Town Hall Extension, a 1977 concrete office block behind the Town Hall whose stepped facade suggested an egg tray. Widely disliked, it was demolished in 2002 and the Peace Gardens, Winter Garden and Millennium Square now occupy the area.

Wikipedia: The Egg Box

The pub on Alma Street, Kelham Island, opened in 1981 by Dave Wickett and Bruce Bentley as one of the first free houses of the real ale revival. Kelham Island Brewery was founded in its garden in 1990. It is famous for cheap, good pub food and a long list of beers.

Wikipedia: The Fat Cat

The Royal Hallamshire Hospital, the tower-block teaching hospital on Glossop Road opened in 1978, next to the university and Weston Park. It handles neurology, cancer, the Jessop Wing maternity unit and much of the city's specialist medicine. Not to be confused with the historic district of Hallamshire.

Wikipedia: The Hallamshire

The music venue and club on Leadmill Road, opened in 1980 in a former flour mill, that gave early gigs to Pulp, the Arctic Monkeys and a great many other bands. A long-running lease dispute between the original operators and the building's owner, Electric Group, ended with the venue changing hands in 2025. Check current listings for what is on there now.

Wikipedia: The Leadmill

The ornate Victorian theatre on Tudor Square next to the Crucible, opened in 1897 to a design by W.G.R. Sprague. After years of decline it was restored and reopened in 1990, and now takes touring musicals, opera and the Christmas pantomime as part of Sheffield Theatres.

Wikipedia: The Lyceum

The long pedestrianised shopping street running south-west from the city centre towards London Road, rebuilt after the Blitz destroyed most of it in 1940. It was redeveloped again in the 2010s with the Moor Market, which replaced the old Castle Market in 2013, and the Light cinema. Not to be confused with the moors of the Peak District on the city's western edge.

Sheffield's daily newspaper, published since 1887 and now owned by National World. Its website thestar.co.uk carries most of the city's day-to-day news. The Green 'Un was its Saturday sports edition. Sister paper to the Sheffield Telegraph.

Wikipedia: The Star

The wide old street running north-east from Lady's Bridge out of the city centre, crossed by the Wicker Arches, the Grade II* listed 660-yard railway viaduct built in 1848 for Victoria Station. The Wicker was badly flooded in 1864 and again in June 2007. It is one of the oldest street names in the city.

The brewery founded in 2005 at Thornbridge Hall near Bakewell in Derbyshire, whose Jaipur IPA helped start the British craft beer boom. It is close enough and sells enough in Sheffield to count as an honorary local, owns a string of Sheffield pubs including the Bath Hotel, the Greystones and the Hallamshire House, and revived the Kelham Island Brewery name after that brewery closed in 2022.

The chocolate firm founded when Joseph William Thornton opened his first shop on Norfolk Street in Sheffield in 1911, famous for its toffee and Continental chocolates. Manufacturing moved to Derbyshire long ago and the chain, now owned by Ferrero, closed its high street shops in 2021, but it remains a Sheffield name.

Wikipedia: Thornton's

Sheffield's big summer music festival, held every July since 2009. It began as a free city-centre event with a main stage on Devonshire Green, grew into a ticketed weekend, and since 2018 has been based in Hillsborough Park, with a free Fringe of gigs across the city's pubs and venues. This site runs a planner for the Tramlines Fringe.

The company that sells multi-operator tickets across South Yorkshire, so one ticket covers Stagecoach, First, TM Travel and other buses, plus Supertram and, on some tickets, local trains. It is jointly owned by the operators and works with SYMCA.

Wikipedia: TravelMaster

The public transport information brand for the region, run by SYMCA, covering bus, tram and train timetables, live departures, fares and the journey planner. It was the public face of SYPTE before that body merged into the combined authority.

Wikipedia: Travel South Yorkshire

The city's red-brick Russell Group university, chartered in 1905, centred on Western Bank with Firth Court, the Arts Tower and the Students' Union. It has around 30,000 students and its Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre helped bring Boeing, Rolls-Royce and McLaren to the Sheffield and Rotherham border.

Wikipedia: University of Sheffield

The electoral division of the city council. Sheffield has 28 wards, each electing three councillors, from Beauchief and Greenhill to Woodhouse. Wards are also used for some council statistics and for the local area committees.

Water, in the broad Sheffield pronunciation, with a short a as in hat. Rain is a great deal of watter. Sheffield's rivers, the Don, Sheaf, Porter, Rivelin and Loxley, provided the watter that powered the grinding wheels on which the cutlery trade was built.

Three things share the name: the Victorian park opened in 1875 next to the University of Sheffield; Weston Park Museum, the city's free museum of Sheffield history, natural history and archaeology, home of Snowy the polar bear; and Weston Park Cancer Hospital across the road, one of England's specialist cancer centres, with its own well-known charity.

In Sheffield and much of Yorkshire, while is used to mean until: "the shop is open nine while five". The usage is so established that road signs and job adverts have been known to use it, to the confusion of visitors who read "wait while the light is red" as an instruction to go.

The great glasshouse next to the Peace Gardens and Millennium Gallery, opened in 2003. Built from parabolic arches of laminated larch, it is about 70 metres long and 21 metres high, one of the largest temperate glasshouses in the UK, and is free to walk through. It links Surrey Street to the Millennium Gallery and the Crucible.

Wikipedia: Winter Garden