Derwent Reservoir (Derbyshire)

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Derwent Reservoir
Derwent Reservoir Looking over the sunken workers' settlement Birchinlee
Derwent Reservoir Looking over the sunken workers' settlement Birchinlee
Location: Derbyshire , England
Tributaries: Derwent , Abbey Brook
Drain: Derwent
Derwent Reservoir (Derbyshire)
Derwent Reservoir
Coordinates 53 ° 24 '45 "  N , 1 ° 44' 35"  W Coordinates: 53 ° 24 '45 "  N , 1 ° 44' 35"  W.
Data on the structure
Construction time: 1902-1914
Height of the structure crown: 35  m
Crown length: 340 m
Data on the reservoir
Total storage space : 9,478,000 m³
Particularities:

Practice site for Operation Chastise

The Two Towers - geograph.org.uk - 961388.jpg
Dam of the Derwent Reservoir

The Derwent Reservoir is the middle of three reservoirs in the upper reaches of the Derwent in Derbyshire , England . The reservoir is located between Glossop and Sheffield in the Peak District and is used to supply drinking water in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire through the drainage of the water in the Derwent Valley Aqueduct . The reservoir is operated by Severn Trent Water .

The reservoir is about 2 km long and runs in a north-south direction. The Derwent is the main tributary of the reservoir. The reservoir connects directly to the Howden Reservoir dam in the north , where there is also a small island. The Abbey Brook is another tributary of the reservoir. The Derwent drains the reservoir in the south and flows there into the Ladybower Reservoir .

The dam in neo-Gothic style is completely made of hewn natural stone.

history

Construction of the Derwent Reservoir began in 1902, one year after the construction of Howden Reservoir began. The construction initially proved difficult, so that the damming of the lake did not begin until November 1914. In January 1916 the lake was completely filled for the first time.

For some of the up to 2,700 construction workers who worked on the two dams , a settlement of tin huts was created, which was officially called Birchinlee , but was generally called "Tin Village" (German: Blechdorf) Residents offered. A railway line was laid between the village of Bamford and the construction site, over which the stones for the dams were transported from a quarry set up for this purpose near Grindleford . Remnants of this railway line can still be seen today, but today the road runs along the reservoir on the route.

In order to bring additional water into the reservoir, a discharge of the rivers Ashop and Alport was built between 1920 and 1931 .

During the Second World War , the area was used as a training site for Operation Chastise due to the similarity of the landscape around the reservoir with that of the dams in today's North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse . Today the Derwent Valley Museum commemorates the RAF unit that carried out these attacks. The museum also commemorates the villages of Derwent and Ashopton , submerged in Ladybower Reservoir.

The Derwent dam in August 2017

Web links

Commons : Derwent Reservoir (Derbyshire)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files