Kinder Reservoir is a public water storage reservoir on the western edge of

Kinder Scout Kinder Scout is a moorland plateau and National nature reserve (United Kingdom), National Nature Reserve in the Dark Peak of the Derbyshire Peak District in England. Part of the moor, at above sea level, is the highest point in the Peak Distric ...

plateau in

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...

. The reservoir lies at the head of the Kinder Valley, above sea level and to the north east of the village of Hayfield. It is owned by

United Utilities United Utilities Group plc (UU) is the United Kingdom's largest listed water company. It was founded in 1995 as a result of the merger of North West Water and NORWEB. The group manages the regulated water and waste water network in North West En ...

Group PLC.

Details

The reservoir is fed by the

River Kinder The River Kinder ( ) is a small river, only about long, in northwestern Derbyshire, England. Rising on the peat moorland plateau of Kinder Scout, it flows generally westwards to its confluence with the River Sett at Bowden Bridge (a Grade II li ...

and by the stream flowing over several small cascades down

William Clough William Clough (13 May 1862 – 11 May 1937) was a British Liberal Party politician. Background A son of Thomas and Hannah Clough, he was educated at Steeton Provident School, Keighley Trade School and Pannal College, Harrogate. He married in 18 ...

valley, which is owned by the

National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...

. The reservoir supplies drinking water and is currently owned and operated by United Utilities. The reservoir has a storage capacity of and a surface area of . Stockport Corporation engaged Abram Kellet of Ealing to build Kinder Reservoir, to supplement the local public water supply. The site above Hayfield was selected by engineer James Mansergh and the reservoir was constructed between 1903 and 1911. Difficulties with the geology led to a change in design in 1905 from a masonry dam to an

earth 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 ...

. Following financial disputes in the courts, Stockport Corporation terminated its contract with Kellets and appointed G H Hill and Sons in 1908 to complete the construction. Two farms were abandoned to make way for the reservoir. Two Acts of Parliament approved the standard-gauge railway that was built to transport materials and

navvy Navvy, a Clipping (morphology), clipping of navigator (United Kingdom, UK) or navigational engineer (United States, US), is particularly applied to describe the manual Laborer, labourers working on major civil engineering projects and occasional ...

workers to the construction site. A small settlement of temporary huts developed for the workers and their families. The reservoir was officially opened on 11 July 1912. The filter house (built beside the reservoir in c.1910) was decommissioned in 1996, when the water began being piped to the newly built Wybersley Water Treatment Works at High Lane, near Stockport. Despite the Kinder filter house being a "notable" example of early 20th-century municipal architecture, photographic evidence shows the present owners have allowed it to fall into disrepair. There is a public car park on Kinder Road about down the valley from the reservoir. Footpaths provide a circular walk of about around the reservoir. The higher ground around the reservoir and Wiliam Clough are a heather moorland landscape.

References

{{commons category Reservoirs in Derbyshire High Peak, Derbyshire