Blackbrook Dam
The Blackbrook Dam was a dam near Blackbrook and Shepshed in the English county of Leicestershire that collapsed in 1799 due to flooding.
history
The dam of the Blackbrook Reservoir was 28 m high, 160 m long and had a storage capacity of 0.2 million m³. The earth dam was built from 1792 to 1796/97 and served to supply the Charnwood Forest Canal, over which coal was transported from Swannington and Coleorton to Loughborough and further along the River Soar to Leicester . The current gravity dam dates from 1906.
catastrophe
In February 1799, after heavy snowfall and the following thaw with rain, a flood occurred that broke the dam on February 20, 1799. The reservoir drained in 11 minutes; the tidal wave flooded the country as far as Dishley on the Soar and destroyed everything on its way, including an earth-built aqueduct . The dam was rebuilt and put into operation in 1801, but the canal was abandoned again in 1804 for economic reasons.
See also
Web links
- In Search of the Lost Canal, with map ( memento from October 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- Charnwood Horseshoe Day Walk (January 27, 2007 memento on the Internet Archive )
- Canals & Tramways, with map ( Memento from February 4, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
