Frecheville is a suburb five miles (8.0 km) south-east of Sheffield city centre. The estate was built in the 1930s when the area was in Derbyshire. However, due to expansion, Frecheville and a number of surrounding villages became part of the city of Sheffield in 1967 and thus the West Riding of Yorkshire.

The Birley Collieries were a group of coal mines set in the Shire Brook Valley in south-east Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. They were connected to the railway system by a branch line from the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway at Woodhouse East Junction, about 800 yards east of Woodhouse station.