How you can explore Sheffield’s hidden rivers

People watch a film while Urban Caving as an underground network of rivers are opened up to the public for an audio-visual spectacular during the Sheffield Adventure Film Festival. Picture: Danny Lawson/PA Wire.

Sheffield developed around the confluence of the River Sheaf and the River Don, but the Sheaf has been hidden away since the mid 19th century in a series of dramatic Victorian tunnels.

The massive culverts run directly under the railway station and city centre streets culminating in a huge vaulted, brick ‘cathedral’ universally referred to as Megatron.

Former Sheffield boxer as Facebook fundraising page for charity event shut down

The tunnels which carry the River Sheaf and Porter Brook through the city are favourites of urban explorers who post evidence of their illicit trips online, but they will now be opened to groups of the public.

The urban caving tours are being led into the darkness as part of the Sheffield Adventure Film Festival (ShAFF), which runs from March 22 to 24 in the Showroom Cinema - one of the buildings built directly over the Porter Brook.

ShAFF is a headline event of The Outdoor City Festival of the Outdoors – a month-long celebration of Sheffield's outdoor life.

People urban caving as an underground network of rivers are opened up to the public for an audio-visual spectacular during the Sheffield Adventure Film Festival.Picture: Danny Lawson/PA Wire

The Castlegate area, where the River Sheaf flows out of the darkness and into the River Don, is currently the centre of a massive redevelopment project which has included a bid to excavate and reveal the remains of Sheffield Castle.

As part of the redevelopment, Sheffield Council is hoping to open up the last few hundred metres of the River Sheaf – from Megatron to the Don – in a park which would be called Sheaf Field.

Simon Ogden, who heads up the Castlegate regeneration and is also the chair of theSheffield Waterways Strategy Group, hopes that this would be the just the beginning.

Rhiannon Scutt performs to Urban Cavers as an underground network of rivers are opened up to the public for an audio-visual spectacular during the Sheffield Adventure Film Festival. Picture: Danny Lawson/PA Wire

Mr Ogden said the Victorian culverts are reaching the end of their life and will soon need replacing.

So, he argues, why not open them up as much as possible?

He said: "I'm here to celebrate these rivers and to start to campaign to rescue some part of them from underground obscurity."

Speaking in Megatron, Mr Ogden said: "The way it rises up it like a cathedral, it's so impressive."

By Dave Higgens, Press Association