Hewenden Reservoir Explained
Hewenden Reservoir is a fresh-water reservoir near to Cullingworth in West Yorkshire, England. The Bradford Corporation built the reservoir, which was flooded in 1845, and is now part of the Yorkshire Water portfolio.
History
Hewenden Reservoir was built as a result of the Bradford Waterworks Act of 1842. The act allowed the Bradford Corporation to abstract large volumes of water from Many Wells Spring, which supplied Hewenden Beck (Harden Beck). This concerned mill owners further downstream on Harden Beck.[3] As a condition of the act, the reservoir at Hewenden was constructed as a compensation Reservoir, which would guarantee a steady flow of water in Harden Beck.[4]
During construction, "three large vertical cracks" appeared in one of the culverts that had just been built, and so remedial action was necessary to the dam walls.[5] By January 1845, the remediation works were completed and the dam wall was complete. Minor works were finalised in the same year and flooding commenced in late spring, though by June, when the reservoir was about 66% full, the dam wall was observed as having collapsed in places.[6] [7] The final cost of the reservoir was £4,856 .[8]
The reservoir now feeds water into Harden Beck, with Hewenden itself being fed by Milking Hole Beck and Denholme Beck, the latter of which flows out from Doe Park Reservoir in Denholme, which has been culverted.[9] [10] Hewenden Reservoir is now owned and operated by Yorkshire Water.[11]
The reservoir is noted for being one of the top ten recorded wettest places in Britain; in June 1956, 155mm of rain fell in 120 minutes,[12] [13] at that time, the largest amount of rainfall ever recorded in Yorkshire.[14] After a long period where the veracity of this claim was doubted in some meteorological circles, a review of the data and weather systems on the day, determined that 152.4mm fell in 105 minutes.[15] In 2008, the peak flow exiting the reservoir was noted at 79m3/s.
References
Sources
- Book: Airey . M . Carruthers . G . Bradford Area Reservoirs' Group-Flood Routing Remedial Works at Leeming, Doe Park and Hewenden Reservoirs . Ensuring Reservoir Safety into the Future: Proceedings of the 15th Conference of the British Dam Society at the University of Warwick from 10–13 September 2008 . January 2008 . 297–308 . 10.1680/ersitf.35225.0025. 978-0-7277-3915-5 .
- Book: Taggart . Michael . Private property and abuse of rights in Victorian England : the story of Edward Pickles and the Bradford water supply . 2002 . Oxford University Press . Oxford . 0-19-925687-X.
External links
Notes and References
- Web site: Hewenden Reservoir . getoutside.ordnancesurvey.co.uk . 3 January 2022.
- Web site: Hewenden Reservoir . eip.ceh.ac.uk . 3 January 2022 . 11 June 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160611204850/https://eip.ceh.ac.uk/apps/lakes/detail.html#wbid=30542 . dead .
- Book: Hudson . W. H. . The acts relating to the transfer of the Bradford waterworks to the Corporation of Bradford . 1856 . Firth & Field . Bradford . 177. 79158354.
- Book: Cudworth . William . Manningham, Heaton, and Allerton : (townships of Bradford) treated historically and topographically . 1896 . Cudworth . Bradford . 324. 1069555989.
- News: The New Water Works . The Bradford Observer . 538 . 4 July 1844 . Column D . 5. 17641939.
- News: Bradford Water Works . The Bradford Observer . 547 . 23 January 1845 . Column B . 6 . 17641939.
- News: The Bradford Water Works . The Bradford Observer . 571 . 12 June 1845 . Column E . 5. 17641939.
- News: Special meeting of the water works company . The Bradford Observer . 581 . 21 August 1845 . Column A . 6. 17641939.
- South Pennines . OL21. 2015 . 1:25,000 . Explorer . Ordnance Survey . 978-0-319-242-60-5 .
- Book: Flood studies report : five years on : proceedings of a conference organized by the Institution of Civil Engineers and held in Manchester, 22-24, July 1980. . 1981 . T. Telford . London . 0-7277-0120-7 . 107.
- News: Stanford . Mike . Is Yorkshire's best reservoir in Bradford? . 31 May 2022 . Bradford Telegraph and Argus . 7 February 2018.
- News: Britain's 10 wettest places . 3 January 2022 . The Telegraph . 1 November 2019.
- News: After the tornado... Six more freak weather events that shook Yorkshire . 3 January 2022 . The Yorkshire Post . 14 September 2016.
- News: Glasspoole . John . Erratic Rainfall In 1956 . The Times . 53737 . 12 January 1957 . 4. 0140-0460.
- Book: Dukes . Michael . Eden . Philip . Hulme . Mike . Barrow . Elaine . Climates of the British Isles : present, past, and future . 1997 . Routledge . London . 0-415-13016-6 . 277 . 13: Phew! What a scorcher; weather records and extremes.
