Barkers Pool

Barker's Pool is a public city square and street in the centre of the City of Sheffield, England. The focus of Barker's Pool is the Grade II listed 90-foot-tall (27 m) First World War memorial that was unveiled on 28 October 1925. The Grade II* listed Sheffield City Hall is on the north side of the plaza facing a branch of the John Lewis Partnership, formerly Cole Brothers, on nearby Fargate.

One of the earliest known references to Barker's Pool comes from the records of the Burgery of Sheffield for 1570. The name Barker's Pool may derive from a "Barker of Balme" mentioned in a deed dating from 1434. At this time the area was known as Balm Green and was on the edge of the town. Sheffield historian Sidney Addy suggests that the name Balm Green indicates that this site was formerly used for the cultivation of the herb lemon balm.

The reservoir was reconstructed and extended by Robert Rollinson before 1631, and was demolished in 1793 when three new reservoirs were constructed at Redmires in nearby Lodge Moor.

In addition to supplying drinking water, the location of Barker's Pool at the highest point in the town allowed water released from the reservoir to be guided through channels that ran along the centre of the town's streets:

All the channels were then in the middle of the streets, which were generally in a very disorderly state, manure heaps often lying in them for a week together. About once every quarter the water was let out of Barker Pool, to run into all those streets into which it could be turned, for the purpose of cleansing them. The bellman gave notice of the exact time, and the favoured streets were all bustle, with a row of men, women, and children on each side of the channel, anxiously and joyfully awaiting, with mops, brooms, and pails, the arrival of the cleansing flood, whose first appearance was announced by a long, continuous shout. All below was anxious expectation; all above, a most amusing scene of bustling animation. Some people were throwing the water up against their houses and windows; some raking the garbage into the kennel; some washing their pigs; some sweeping the pavement; youngsters throwing water on their companions, or pushing them into the wide-spread torrent. Meanwhile a constant, Babel-like uproar, mixed with the barking of dogs and the grunting of pigs, was heard both above and below, till the waters, after about half an hour, had become exhausted.

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