Dale Dyke Dam
The Dale-Dyke Dam was a dam about 8 to 10 kilometers above the city of Sheffield in England . It was built on the River Loxley by the Sheffield Water Company from 1859 to 1864 and was 25.50 meters high. The reservoir behind it (the Bradfield Reservoir) was up to 21 meters deep. The storage volume was around 3 million m³. The dam length was 270 meters and the crown width 12 meters.
It broke on March 11, 1864 and caused a tidal wave that partially devastated Sheffield and claimed around 250 to 270 lives. The flood is also known as the "Great Sheffield Flood" or the "Great Flood".
The dam was almost finished and filled for the first time. The break occurred shortly before midnight during stormy weather. Water splashed over the top of the dam, driven by the wind. At first there was just a small, finger-width crack in the air side . The chief engineer of the waterworks, John Gunson, examined the crack and although he thought it was safe, they wanted to lower the reservoir. With the normal drain, this would have taken days, so an attempt was made to blow up the weir at the overflow to create a larger outflow opening. Before that succeeded, the crack enlarged, a breach formed, and the dam collapsed around 11:30 p.m. John Gunson was just able to save himself.
The tidal wave tumbled down the valley, through Loxley and Hillsborough , then down the River Don, and through Sheffield, Attercliffe and Rotherham . The tsunami destroyed 800 houses, all bridges in the city including Lady's Bridge in the city center. Corpses were later found in more distant Mexborough .
The reservoir was almost empty after 47 minutes.
Ten years later (from 1870 to 1874) a new dam was built around 300 meters further up the valley, which still exists today.
literature
- Samuel Harrison: A Complete History of the Great Flood at Sheffield , 1864
- Geoffrey Amey: Collapse Of The Dale Dyke Dam - 1864 , 1974
- Peter Machan: The Dramatic Story of The Sheffield Flood , 1999
See also
Web links
- The Great Flood at Sheffield: THE 140th ANNIVERSARY ( Memento from April 16, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
- Newspaper article from 1864
- The Great Flood at Sheffield - 1864
- A COMPLETE HISTORY of the GREAT FLOOD at SHEFFIELD (PDF file, 520 kB)