Friends of Loxley Cemetery

The Great Sheffield Flood, also known as the Great Inundation, was a disaster that devastated areas in and above Sheffield on March 11, 1864.

Dale Dyke reservoir was one of a planned four reservoirs built around Bradfield, about 8 miles north-west of Sheffield, to satisfy the developing steel industry of Sheffield. The embankment damming the Dale Dyke stream was of earth construction, forming a reservoir a mile long and a quarter mile in width.

It was almost completed when it was breached during a storm on the 11th March, just before midnight. Within an hour some 650 million gallons swept through the gap, the torrent of water sweeping down the Loxley valley through Low Bradfield down to Hillsborough and into Sheffield. The flood reached a depth of 26 feet on the Upper Loxley, and 6 feet as far as Lady’s Bridge in the centre of Sheffield. At least 240 lives were lost. Some of the flood victims are buried at the cemetery.