The landscape around the Rivelin Valley has inspired both Contemporary and Victorian poets as well as artists. We mention a few poets here – if you know of others, or if you would like your own Rivelin-inspired poem included here, then please get in touch at rivelin.valley@gmail.com.

Fay Musselwhite

Sheffield based poet Fay Musselwhite has written poetry about the Rivelin Valley. She led her first poetry walk along the river in March 2014 – an account of this event, with details of how some of the poetry relates to certain stretches of river, can be read here. Sound recordings made on the day of poems read at their different locations are available here.

These poems are included in Fay’s poetry collection Contraflow, published by Longbarrow Press in 2016, which features her long poem about Rivelin, Memoir of a Working River. This starts with a vivid description of an old man arriving at the old stone building beside the small reservoir at the start of the Redmires conduit….

“Old man, liver-brown

spittle-flecked and slower now retired

quits a time-worn groove, waives his bed

returns on a crow’s route to Rivelin Brook.

….

A low wind moans in the heather

wheezes its way round the moor

whistles a twist in the ridge path’s mane

grinds its name into bridge metal.”

….

The poem goes on to tell the story of a character who is sometimes river, sometimes human, as he experiences the changes wrought by the industry once driven by the Rivelin’s current. It ends at Watersmeet (Malin Bridge), where the Rivelin joins the Loxley …..

“Last shake of his froth-head –

recalls a downhill freefall

a wheel, how he leapt

memory rides in on reason’s tide

surge rises, bores the last bend

bails out at the last weir’s crest

on grass he shimmers into human skin

watches the Loxley usher his kin

through palisades, into the throng

and on, under the bridge he scales.“

Other poems based on the local area, including Contra Flow, Here I spill, Moorhen, Pulling Balsam and How Rivers Begin are also presented in Fay’s book Contraflow, which is available to buy at https://faymusselwhitecontraflow.wordpress.com/.

Elizabeth R. Walker

“If you should stray a little way

From the main path

You could come across

This old dam

Beneath elder, ivy and sycamore

Where willow and stones weep

Water diverted from the river.

….

Derelict, oozing decay,

Coated in moss, lichen and slime,

It crumbles under creeping vines and roots

Which grasp at gaps and crevices in its walls

Held together grimly by an iron arch.

….

The smell of rot rises rank from the gaping pit

Dank and dark

Where water drips and leaves drop

To a stagnant pool-

A place which even rats might shun,

A desolate reminder of an industry long gone

And a reason for most to move on”

The booklet in which this poem appears is called ‘Nature’s Way’ and it contains three poems about Rivelin, with others relating to Bradfield, Strines and Damflask, as well as general poems of observations of animals and birds. It also contains associated photos taken in these areas.

Booklets can be purchased from the author @ £7.50 plus postage.

Orders can be made through this email address – erwalker715@btinternet.com

Poetry ‘Open Mic’ walk at the Rivelin Heritage Open Day, September 2022

Participants in this event walked by the river, with regular stops for poetry readings to the group – either a poem of their own or by someone else.

Two of the participants provided their poems for us to publish in this Newsletter, you can read both below.

Jenny Hockey

“after lunch we left the men asleep

and found our point of balance

out among the stones,

never minding the slime

or how much wider the river was

than we’d thought

….

only the quiet midstream

and us shifting our weight

from one leg to the other

like babies learning to walk,

us reaching the other side

where even Yorkshire ends

….

and not turning back,

just setting our four wet feet

into the mudsuck bank,

liking the squelch, the tickle

of fern, no words on our tongues,

no further need for a plan

….

Crossing the river with Ann by Jenny Hockey

Thanks are due to Wendy Pratt, editor of the wonderful, illustrated poetry magazine, Spelt (‘celebrating the rural experience’), and her co-editor Steve Nash, for including this poem in Issue 3, 2021.

Jenny Hockey’s collection, ‘Going to bed with the moon’ (Oversteps Books) can be found at: jennyhockeypoetry.co.uk

Anne Grange

As a writer who lives near the Rivelin Valley, Ann finds it a constant source of inspiration, and has been on several poetry walks in the valley, always learning new things. In April 2022, she decided to lead her own nature writing workshop in the valley that included walk around Roscoe Wheel, writing down everything experienced through senses – an experience she would definitely recommend! Later, she came across an old photograph of the mill cottages (with a sign saying TEAS) and the greenhouses, and was able to make sense of the ruins as well as wondering what the women in the photograph (she’s sure Mrs Moss was one of them) would think about the Rivelin Valley of 2022.

Mrs Moss

Roscoe Wheel Cottages

Rivelin Valley

Sheffield

Dear Mrs Moss,

I’m sorry to say that all that’s left of your lovely greenhouse

is now a pile of broken glass.

tree roots grow through the remaining stones of your cottage;

the millpond is now a boggy woodland.

But the bridge stands firm, unchanged;

the old, cold iron of the gatepost,

although there is no gate,

stonework soft with velvet moss.

Families still walk here,

you wouldn’t recognise their clothes,

but most of their accents would be comforting to you.

Children laugh and pick up pebbles.

Dogs run and bark, mums fuss;

dads are daft in the valley’s fresh air.

They race sticks floating under the bridge, inspired by a children’s book a hundred years old.

It was after your time. But they have fun. They still bring picnics, paddle in the clear water,

balance on the stepping stones.

There’s a cafe downstream now, instead of your teashop.

There are still robins, mallards,

Chaffinches and chiffchaffs,

No machine noises at all

Apart from the faint rush of traffic

Speeding across the Pennines.

Woodpigeons, and water flowing

Over the weir.

At Roscoe Wheel by Anne Grange