Newsletter

Rivelin Valley Conservation Group

Autumn 2013 no 88 Contacts Chairman Graham Appleby 01142660203

Task Force Coordinator Keith Kendall 01142307144 Through The Chair Membership/Newsletter M Sanderson 01142306790

Treasurer David Lyon 01142302660 Group Recorder Joan Buckland 01142660203 Welcome to the autumn RVCG newsletter. Events Janet Bowring 01142307570 I usually start off talking about the weather Mail to : [email protected] and we can’t complain about the summer Web: www.rivelinvalley.org.uk we have had this year. One of the best I can remember for a long time after a very Rivelin Water Treatment Works cold and miserable spring where all our In early 2011 planning proposals were plants and trees were late coming into leaf. submitted by Yorkshire Water Services to The average temperature in the UK didn’t construct an additional building at the reach double figures until June and even Rivelin Works to add an extra filtration then it was still below average until the stage to the treatment process. This was long heat wave in July. And after a part of an £16 million upgrading of the pleasant summer we are still well in double works to both replace old equipment and to figures coming to the end of October which meet Drinking Water Inspectorate is also very unusual. requirements following water quality One of the benefits of the long summer failures. warmth was the hedgerow fruits that The Rivelin Valley Conservation Group provided us with berries in abundance. The became involved in the planning process bees seem to have made up for their late objecting to the proposal to construct the start providing lots of honey as compared new building with wood cladding rather than build in stone to match the rest of the to the previous year. Recent rains have buildings on the site. swollen the almost to the level The Group had meetings with YWS and of some of the adjacent paths and with a their consultants Mott McDonald Bentley weather warning imminent I can see lots more work for Keith Kendall and his task but were only able to influence the appearance of the building to more closely team who have been busy repairing footpaths, installing benches and cutting follow the contours of the existing stone buildings. Planning Department back shrubbery at the upper end of the valley below King Edwards Hospital. were satisfied that with the restricted views of the new building from surrounding If you haven’t attended our recent open meetings then you have missed a vantage points the wood cladding was adequate. treat and recommend you attend our next open meeting at 7:30pm on Tuesday 12th Members of the Group’s Committee had

Nov with a stunning selection of wildlife liaison meetings with YWS and their images by Steve Drinkall at Stephen Hill contractors during the construction phase

Church. We are still looking for a new and it was agreed that a visit to view the speaker organiser for Autumn next year as whole site would take place once the work Janet Bowring is stepping down. Please let was completed. This visit took place June me know if you can help. 2013. Graham Appleby There has been water treatment works on RVCG Chairman this site since 1912 treating water from the

Page 1 of 6 then newly constructed reservoirs in the colour, turbidity, aluminium and iron from Derwent Valley. The works was extended the water to E.U drinking water standards. over the years and by 1952 could treat After filtration sodium hypochlorite 60,000 cubic meters (13.2 million gallons) (generated on site) is added to the water daily. This works could not meet the E.U for disinfection together with sodium Drinking Water Standards and the new hydroxide to increase the pH of the water. trea tment works was built and Under these conditions the natural commissioned in1995, capable of treating manganese present in the water is 75,000 cubic meters (16.5 million gallons) converted into an insoluble form which can daily. be removed by the manganese contactors The group’s visit started at the inlet to the (similar to rapid gravity filters) in the new works which incorporates a hydro generator filter building. providing some of the electrical power to Prior to the building of these new the site. The incoming untreated water is contactors the manganese in the water was primarily sourced from the Derwent Valley removed on the first stage filters together via the Rivelin Tunnel. However following with any remaining iron. The new the closure of the Redmires Filter Station in contactors allow better process 2001 it is now supplemented with water optimisation ensuring that the treated from the Redmires Reservoirs via Wyming water meets the requisite drinking water Brook. quality standards. The Sirofloc Process developed in Australia After final adjustment of pH and chlorine is used to treat the water. Magnetite (finely levels the water is pumped to the treated divided magnetic iron ore) is added to the water storage reservoir, located on the water together with acid and mixed in opposite side of the road to the works, contact tanks. Under the acidic conditions a prior to distribution to customers. positive charge forms on the surface of the During the course of the visit in addition to magnetite which attracts the negatively the new filter house the group were also charged impurities in the water. The shown the other upgrades including pipe adsorption process is enhanced by adding a work modifications, new chemical dosing small dose of polyelectrolyte to the water. and control systems together with the The water containing the loaded magnetite refurbished chemical storage area. flows from the mixing tanks into 3 large The group found the visit both interesting circular contact tanks after passing between and informative particularly as following the poles of magnets located in the the closure of the Redmires Filter Station, pipework. The induced magnetic field the works distribution system also now causes the magnetite particles to bind supplies the Lodge Moor and together causing rapid settlement in the areas. It is a pity that Yorkshire Water clarifiers. The magnetite falls to the base of Services cannot be persuaded to open the the clarifier where it is scraped to a central treatment works for public visits but Health outlet cone and pumped into the and Safety concerns rule this out. regeneration system for cleaning under The new filter building has won the alkaline conditions using sodium hydroxide, Institution of Civil Engineers Yorkshire and before being returned to the start of the Award for excellence in concept, process. design and execution. Yorkshire Water’s The clarified water flows upwards through press release for the award acknowledged the clarifiers and is collected in hoppers at RVCG’s role in the planning process. the top of the clarifiers and from there it David Lyon flows through magnetite recovery tanks Donations allowing any remaining magnetite to settle Once more thanks for your generosity to out before the water is filtered in the first Stirling, Bakewell Fly Fishing, Beardmore, stage of rapid gravity sand filters. The Ollin, White, France, Roe and Byles - now magnetite adsorption process followed by more than £850 for this year and you will filtration removes naturally occurring know it will be very well used in our valley.

Page 2 of 6 courts are now overgrown and the pavilion Bomb Site is reduced to its brick foundations – but In a Daily Mail article of 31st August this RVCG member Joyce Keen can remember year it was stated that after the WW2 the site in its heyday in the 1930’s when Sheffield blitz, a number of unexploded she was between 6 and 15 years old. bombs were moved along the A57 to “I was a Carver Street girl, christened and Rivelin. The lorries flew red flags and married there, attended Sunday School and sounded their horns then pulled into a field taught there, sang in the choir and a on the south side of the road near to the member of the youth club. We often went water works. After a few days the bombs to the field during the week (possibly blew up. It is not said if this was accidental making ourselves nuisances).” or deliberate. The water mains were “It was a regular meeting place on ruptured causing half of Sheffield to be Saturdays, in the summer and at holiday without water. times (Whitsuntide and Bank Holidays), Does anyone know more about this strange nearly all the members, young and old event? alike, came to the field. Tea and lemonade were available in the hut and the ladies Would you like to to join the Task brought refreshments and made Team? Please contact Keith Kendall sandwiches. This continued into the first – the more the merrier. few months of the war, but gradually tailed off as we youngsters were not available to Why not come to our Open Meetings, do the maintenance.” mostly at Stephen Hill Church Crosspool. Joyce says two of the courts were kept in Everyone welcome – you do not have to be good condition for matches but that a member so why not bring a friend. another two were already uncared for. Intriguingly, there was also a 9 hole putting This Newsletter is sponsored by Clarity green, a railway carriage, two see-saws Printers of Shepcote Lane and a swing. Joyce says she kept out of the

Telephone 0114 2448844 way when “work seemed imminent!”

Suppliers of office equipment Members may be pleased to know that Winter Warning children were not allowed in the meadow This is the time when our prickly friend, the below the courts in case they disturbed hedgehog will be starting to hibernate. rare plants. Nature conservation is clearly They already have a lot of enemies - not a new preoccupation. pesticides, strimmers, traffic, badgers also If anyone else has any memories of Carver walls and fences that do not allow free Fields they would like to share, please passage for their nightly food searches. So contact the editor. Perhaps you remember don’t be too tidy in your garden but leave the football pitches, the cricket nets or the them some fallen leaves in a cosy corner to putting green? Or do you have any make a winter hideaway. photographs we could publish?

Jeremy Youle You might have seen the Crosspool “Well Thanks to Joyce Keen for this information. Dressing” at this summer’s Crosspool Festival. Thanks to the RVCG members who made this possible. The Carver Fields area and Den Bank

Edge must have a lot of memories for

Anyone for Tennis? old time Sheffielders. I was reliably What is now known as Carver Fields on informed many years ago by a person

Hagg Lane was once the playing fields of who was born in 1897 that the edge the Carver Street Methodist Chapel. was known as a “monkey rack”, that is

Ordnance Survey maps show that the there a place where young people walked up were three tennis courts in the 1920’s and down in the hopes of making a hit increasing to six in the next decade. The with the opposite sex. He and his

Page 3 of 6 friends travelled all the way from for this occupation. Tuesday 8th October Malcolm Nunn Please contact M Sanderson if you have Around , Storrs, any more information or stories about and Rivelin Carver Fields fields or Den Bank Edge. Once more an entertaining evening of local history with Malcolm Nunn. RVCG BBQ This time we were back in Knowle Top

Many thanks to Ken for letting use his Chapel, Stannington. Malcolm has a lovely garden for our annual BBQ. Once large collection of historical more we had a fine day. photographs of our area and here are just a few examples of those we saw. Some Recent Open Meetings Mousehole Forge, now gone though the Tuesday 12th November house remains. Here anvils with the Diana Rybinski trademark “mouse” were forged and Disaster of the Aral Sea exported around the world.

Not many of us have the opportunity to The first motor charabanc disaster was at in 1907 where visit Uzbekistan so it was very entertaining to see Diana’s account of several people were killed Then there was the Royal Hotel at this area that was once part of USSR and became independent in 1991. Dungworth where the old game of knur and spell was played using a spinning She arrived in Tashkent, the capital via clay ball. Uzbek airlines. Horatio Bright who lived in Lydgate Hall The people were friendly and children (now gone) built a mausoleum for his wanted to practice their English on her. wife at Moscar and was said to have Food included salads, pike, beetroot, placed her in a glass coffin where he quail, rice, apricot jam and horse also installed an organ so that he could sausage. Nescafe and green tea were play to her. Her body is now removed drunk. On the first day, she set off across the from the site and strangely is said to be in Kelham Island. Does anyone know desert by turbo prop plane and a 4x4 vehicle. The journey to the north was more about this? Margaret Sanderson through flat scrubland and the party had to endure camping in gale conditions and cold nights.

The Aral Sea is now very much Thanks to Mavis Roadhouse who has depleted thanks to the USSR diverting st epped into our “caterers” shoes, rivers for their own irrigation purposes providing refreshments at our Open and so the area became a dried up Meetings. environmental disaster. The local Do try to come to our Open Meetings – fishing was lost and when the winds we always have something of interest blew, salt laden dust was carried afar, reducing soil fertility and causing health problems . However new schemes hope to revitalise the area.

A curious fact – there are no coins in

Uz bekistan, just notes.

Page 4 of 6 Large Cabbage White Butterflies have THE RECORDER been very numerous much to the

annoyance of vegetable growers.

Autumn has definitely arrived. The This year I have seen more little leaves are turning, mornings are misty mammals in the garden, also probably and there are lots of berries. The due to the sunny weather. I have rowans look spectacular and my Fieldmice in the dry stone wall and cotoneaster is covered in berries. Common Shrews running about under Hopefully these will sustain the winter the creeping Periwinkle. The cat caught migrants – Waxwings, Fieldfares and two Shrews which were, apparently, Redwings, especially if we have another unhurt. Shrews do not taste very nice hard winter. This year, as opposed to to cats and are not eaten. One stayed last year, most people have had good in the porch for a while and I fed it on fruit crops due to the plentiful supply of slugs and worms which it ate with water in the snowy spring and the relish, before returning to the garden. beautiful, sunny weather of the They are delightful little creatures with summer. If you have not been out long hairy muzzles which twitch blackberrying you have missed a very incessantly. bountiful harvest.

Now is the time to collect seeds from As a result of the good summer any plants you wish to grow next year, weather the bees have had a better but try to leave some for the birds and year and there should be some honey also leave some hollow stalks which are to spare for those, like me, who love it. good for insects to overwinter in. I The birds also enjoyed the better always leave a few Ragwort plants in weather and some of them had two or my garden. Hover flies love the flowers even three broods. I have never seen and finches love the seeds. I have so many Sparrows in my garden, 30 already had Goldfinches eating the plus in July, and immatures were still seeds. What I have not had for a few being fed on the 17th August. There years are the black and orange striped were also more Magpies and Rooks in caterpillars of the striking black and red the garden than usual during May and Cinnabar Moth. If you have seen these June seeking out the nestlings. The please let me know. I, also, have not Sparrowhawks took their share also. seen a Hedgehog, dead or alive, for a On the 8th July, at 5.30 pm, there was a number of years. Are they living and rumpus in the plum tree with lots of breeding in your garden? Please let me crashing about and 5 Magpies and know. several Starlings creating such a din.

This went on for about three quarters of Keep an eye open for a male Peregrine an hour. The female Sparrowhawk had falcon with a red band on its leg. It caught a Starling and ate it, seemingly was reared in the nest on St George’s ignoring the cacophony round it. Church but damaged its flight muscles

after crashing into a building. It has Coloured butterfly numbers picked up been nursed back to health and in August - small Tortoiseshell being released in the area. Visit the most numerous with a few Peacock www.sbsg.org to report sightings. and the occasional Comma, Red

Admiral and Painted Lady. Small and

Page 5 of 6 off soundlessly. Also saw a Heron at Swallows have been making their way same location. 6.8.13 – Third Coppice south this month (Sept.). The last ones Wheel – Kingfisher perched on branch. I saw were at 3pm on 23rd September. 18.8.13 – Wolf Wheel – Kingfisher A flock of about 100 were wheeling swooped over in full sunlight like an around above a field off azure dart, and then saw it again Road. The Swifts went back in August perched over Swallow Wheel. – Lucky and I last saw 4 swifts above the house man! (JMB). 11.8.13 – Upper Coppice on the 14th. Did anyone see them later Pond – 3 immature Great Spotted than this? Woodpeckers.

Roe Deer and Muntjac are being seen Janet Bowring S10 – 5.9.13 – 10 Long more frequently in the valley. If you Tailed Tits in garden. are not an early morning or late Stephen Hill Church 27.9.13 – 7 Small evening dog walker or jogger, you may Tortoiseshell, 1 Peacock, 1 Red Admiral see their footprints in the mud if not and 1 Painted Lady on Buddleja the animal. Take the children/ (spelling follows Stace 1997). grandchildren down the valley and look for animal spoor. While you are down Shirley Foster S10 – Still had tadpoles there look out for dippers – has anyone in a bath on her Hagg Lane allotment. seen one lately? Mary Brazil S10 - 11.9.13 – Wolf Wheel You may have read recently about the – Kingfisher busy fishing from low dramatic decline in species over the last branch over water. few decades. We can all do our bit by making our gardens as wildlife friendly Joan Buckland as possible.

The more ponds we have the better!! http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/scienc e/stateofnature/foreword.aspx

Thank you to all who have sent in records.

Doreen Best 16.7.13 - female Sparrowhawk visited garden on 16th and 24th July, probably the cause of the remains of a dead pigeon on the lawn.

Graeme Hodgson – regularly walks in the valley and has seen the following butterflies – many Comma, Holly Blue, several Peacock, Orange Tip and Small Tortoiseshell. 26.6.13 – at Swallow Wheel – in the evening a Tawny Owl swooped past and landed on a low bough. Had a good eye to eye and flew

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