Burnhope Reservoir ( ) is a reservoir above the village of

Wearhead Wearhead is a village in the civil parish of Stanhope, County Durham, Stanhope, in County Durham, England. It is situated at the top of Weardale between Cowshill and Ireshopeburn. It is named after the nearby source of the River Wear which runs ...

County Durham County Durham, officially simply Durham, is a ceremonial county in North East England.UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne an ...

, England. The reservoir was created by the construction of an earth

embankment dam An embankment dam is a large artificial dam. It is typically created by the placement and compaction of a complex semi-plastic mound of various compositions of soil or rock. It has a semi-pervious waterproof natural covering for its surface ...

across the valley of Burnhope Burn, a tributary of the

River Wear The River Wear (, ) in Northern England rises in the Pennines and flows eastwards, mostly through County Durham, to the North Sea in the City of Sunderland. At long, it is one of the region's longest rivers. The Wear wends in a steep valley t ...

, above

. Construction of the dam began in 1931 and was completed in 1937; an extensive network of

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum railw ...

railways, the Burnhope Reservoir railway, was used during the construction of the dam. Filling of the reservoir commenced in 1936 and resulted in the drowning of the former village of Burnhope. Burnhope Reservoir was a joint project of the Durham County Water Board and the Sunderland and South Shields Water Company. It is now owned and operated by

Northumbrian Water Northumbrian Water Limited is a water company in the United Kingdom, providing mains water and sewerage services in the English counties of Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, Durham and parts of North Yorkshire, and also supplying water as Essex ...

. The reservoir supplies water to the Wear Valley treatment works at Wearhead and there is a pipeline connection to

Waskerley Reservoir Waskerley Reservoir is the largest of a group of three reservoirs located on Muggleswick Common, County Durham, with the others being Smiddy Shaw and Hisehope Reservoirs. The reservoir, which was constructed in 1877, is owned and operated b ...

, which supplies Honey Hill water treatment works. The reservoir serves as the source to meet regulated discharges into the River Wear and to compensate for abstraction of water at

Chester-le-Street Chester-le-Street () is a market town in County Durham, England. It is located around north of Durham and is close to Newcastle. The town holds markets on Saturdays. In 2021, the town had a population of 23,555. The town's history is ancient; ...

further downstream.)

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* Drinking water reservoirs in England Reservoirs in County Durham Dams completed in 1937 Stanhope, County Durham {{Durham-geo-stub

See also

References

External links