it was when the Smithy Wood Colliery was operational. Much of it disappeared under the colliery waste tips, but it has been diverted around the tip, and follows an 'S' shaped course to regain its original route at the southern end of the site. It then passes through the S35 Industrial Park, under Loicher Bridge, and back under the railway to join up with Whitley Brook, which is also known as Ecclesfield Brook. Whitley Brook rises as a series of springs to the west of Whitley Hall, an ancient house dating from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, with more recent additions. A doorway carries the inscription "William Parker made this worke 1584", and the building, which is now used as a hotel and restaurant, is grade II* listed. A large lake in the grounds was once the mill pond to Whitley Mill. The brook flows east, and then south-east to Ecclesfield, where it is joined by another small stream, rising to the east of Grenoside, which passes through a hamlet called The Wheel, and then fills a large dam. Nearby is Willow Garth moated site and fishpond, which was close to a Benedictine Priory, parts of which remain, although converted into dwellings. The dam supplied water power to Ecclesfield paper mill, sandwiched between the dam and the south bank of Whitley Brook. The brook continues in a south-easterly direction through Ecclesfield, where is powered Ecclesfield corn mill, Norfolk Foundry and Oliver Wheel, before it joined Blackburn Brook. Immeditately after the junction, Blackburn Brook is culverted under a works and factories, and is joined by Hartley Brook Dike, which is called Tongue Gutter as it rises near Parson Cross, becomes Sheffield Lane Dike as it approaches Shiregreen, and Hartley Brook Dike as it passes along the western and northern edges of Shiregreen. The Trans Pennine Trail long distance pathway follows its course for its entire length. Blackburn Brook continues to the south-east, hemmed in by the Penistone Branch Railway and the former Woodburn Junction and Aldam Junction Railway to the south-west, and by the M1 motorway to the north-east, with the village of Blackburn located on the far side of the motorway. The river once powered Gibraltar Steel Mill, Grange Mill and Blackburn Wheel in this vicinity. There are several culverted sections, as the river weaves its way through an industrial landscape and the sliproads for junction 34 of the