Derwent Reservoir

Derwent Reservoir lies in the Upper Derwent Valley in north Derbyshire, about sixteen kilometres from Glossop and Sheffield. It is the middle of three reservoirs fed by the River Derwent, which flows through Howden Dam at the north end and Derwent Dam at the south. The water body stretches roughly two and a half kilometres long and reaches depths of thirty-five metres at its deepest point. A small island sits close to Howden Dam, and Abbey Brook enters the reservoir from the east. The surrounding landscape is mostly owned by Severn Trent Water, half of it covered in conifer and broadleaf woodland. The reservoir was built to meet rising demand for water during the 19th-century industrial expansion of Sheffield and nearby cities. Construction began in 1902 under chief engineer Edward Sandeman, who later received the Telford Medal for his work. Over a thousand workers lived in a temporary settlement called Birchinlee, where one metal hut survives today as a hairdresser’s in Hope village. The dam holds nearly ten million cubic metres of water and overflowed for the first time in January 1916. In the 1920s and 1930s extra rivers were diverted into the reservoir to increase capacity ahead of Ladybower’s construction. Visitors walk along the reservoir’s banks or follow footpaths that cross moorland and gritstone edges open year-round except during shooting seasons. A stone memorial on the bank honours Tip, a sheepdog that stayed beside its shepherd’s body for over a hundred days in 1953–54. A plaque on the dam commemorates 617 Squadron’s wartime low-level training for the Dam Busters raids, and occasional flypasts by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight take place above the water. The woods are filled with larch, pine, spruce, sycamore, beech and oak, while sheep graze the surrounding hills leased to local farmers.