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Ecclesall Ward—which includes the neighbourhoods of Banner Cross, Bents Green, Carterknowle, Ecclesall, Greystones, Millhouses, and Ringinglow—is one of the 28 electoral wards in the Sheffield district, in the county of South Yorkshire, England. It is located in the southwestern part of the city and covers an area of . The population of this ward in 2007 was 19,211 people in 7,626 households, reducing to 6,657 at the 2011 Census. Ecclesall ward is one of the four wards that make up the South West Community Assembly and one of five wards that make up the Sheffield Hallam Parliamentary constituency. The Member of Parliament is Olivia Blake, a Labour MP. Ecclesall is one of the least socially deprived wards in the entire country, with a 2002 deprivation score of 4.7—making it the 8,105th most deprived (hence 309th least deprived) ward out of 8,414 wards in the country. The demographic consists largely of white, middle-class families.
Ecclesall electoral ward was created 1934 when the old Ecclesall Bierlow ward was divided into Ecclesall, Broomhill and Hallam.
The boundaries of the ward include about half of the area that was historically known as Ecclesall Bierlow—one of the six 'townships' that made up the old Parish of Sheffield. Ecclesall Bierlow encompassed most of the land between the River Sheaf and the Porter Brook from The Moor to Ringinglow. It also included the areas of Broomhall and Crookesmoor to the north of the Porter Brook. Though this area contained numerous small villages and hamlets, there was never a village called Ecclesall. The parish of Ecclesall was formed on 1 April 1904 from "Ecclesall Bierlow", on 1 April 1933 the parish was abolished and merged with Sheffield. In 1931 the parish had a population of 203,892. It is now in the unparished area of Sheffield.
In ancient times this area was part of the Barnsdale that, together with Sherwood Forest, made up the forest of the Robin Hood legends. The River Sheaf was thought for a time to be a "boundary" between the kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia to the south. There is no historical proof of such a boundary as Northumbria stretched deep within Lindsey and modern Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire at different stages between the 6th and 11th century. What is thought to be the earliest historical record of this area refers to a defeat of the native Northumbrian army to an invasion force from the Wessex, which some historians have speculated may have taken place in the area around nearby Dore in 829. The name Ecclesall (either from Heeksel-Hallr meaning the witches' hill, () or Eccles (church) halh (hollow)) is not mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086—at that time Ecclesall was a part of the manor of Hallamshire. The name Ecclesall/Eccleshall is thought to be of Anglo-Scandinavian origin. The name is first found about 150 years later in the name of Sir Ralphus De Ecclesall a Norman feudal overlord who had taken over lands in the area from native Northumbrian landlords after the Norman invasion. The De Ecclesall family gave land to Norman and French monks who had come to Britain after the invasion. At Beauchief they established a cereal mill on the river Sheaf, which was part of Beauchief Abbey. Many of the buildings of Ecclesall corn mill can still be seen at the northern end of Millhouses park—the district of Millhouses taking its name from this mill. In payment for the mill the monks of Beauchief were to provide a canon to say prayers daily at the Ecclesall chapel. These services continued at the chapel until the Dissolution of the Monasteries when Beauchief Abbey was abandoned. The chapel was restored in 1622 but was demolished when the present church was built nearby in 1788.
Until the 19th century Ecclesall Bierlow was very sparsely populated—in 1801 there were just 5362 people. This changed with the coming of the industrial revolution and the subsequent expansion of nearby Sheffield and by 1831 the population had increased to 14,239. In 1837 the Ecclesall Bierlow Poor Law Union came into being. As well as Ecclesall Bierlow, this encompassed Nether Hallam, Upper Hallam, Beauchief, Dore, Norton, and Totley. A workhouse was built near Ecclesall at Cherry Tree Hill, an area now part of the suburb of Nether Edge that was built up in the latter half of the 19th century. In 1929 the Ecclesall Bierlow Union Workhouse closed for good and became the Nether Edge Hospital, it remained in use as a hospital into the 1990s. Part of the old Workhouse the administration buildings that were across Union Road separate from the main Union Workhouse building became Nether Edge Grammar School, later renamed Brincliffe Grammar School in the late 1950s.
Historic sites within the ward include Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet and Shepherd Wheel (both now museums). Ecclesall Wood has many examples of white coal kilns and the grave of a wood collier who was killed here when his cabin burned down on 11 October 1786.
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