South Yorkshire: It’s the river that gave the city its name, and for the first time in 160 years train passengers can catch a glimpse beneath their feet
The ground under my feet starts vibrating, so I look up and see a London train rumbling into view. Two crows, also disturbed, lift themselves off a signalling mast to settle again on a high wall dotted with buddleia. A few gulls are squabbling overhead against a greying sky that has left Platform 5A slick with drizzle. Then I lower my head again to the mesmerising square of water rushing beneath my feet.
It is the first view of the River Sheaf at this spot since the late 1860s, when it was culverted and plunged into darkness for the construction of Sheffield station, right where another stream, the Porter Brook, flows into it. Now, like some Roman mosaic or Anglo-Saxon hoard, a fragment of this treasure has been exposed, with the opening of a lightwell, protected by a steel grille, that allows rail passengers to look down on the lost river that gave their city its name.