Ulley Reservoir is a
reservoir
A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation.
Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...
a few hundred yards to the west and downhill of the village of
Ulley, south of
Rotherham,
South Yorkshire, England. It is away from junction 33 of the
M1 motorway.
History
The
reservoir
A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation.
Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...
was built in 1871 by damming the brooks of Ulley and Morthen, to provide the town of Rotherham with approximately 180 million gallons (820 million litres) of drinking water per year. The reservoir is divided in two by a road bridge carrying Reservoir Road; one half is used for
angling
Angling (from Old English ''angol'', meaning "hook") is a fishing technique that uses a fish hook attached to a fishing line to tether individual fish in the mouth. The fishing line is usually manipulated with a fishing rod, although rodless te ...
and
dinghy sailing, and the other is now a nature reserve.
The
dam is an earth embankment made of a clay core and earth filled shoulders. In 1969 the dam wall was built up by with plastic concrete and relevelled. The spillways and overflow are made of
ashlar
Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones.
Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...
br>
pitchingset on
concrete
Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactur ...
. It is in height with a slope of 12.7 degrees, with two lateral overflow stepped
spillways. The reservoir covers an area of and is about deep.
In the 1980s it was decided that it was no longer needed for water supplies and was sold to Rotherham council for £1. The council turned the venue into the centrepiece of
Ulley Country Park, with the water hosting sailing and fishing.
Ecology
The reservoir and the surrounding country park are a haven for a variety of wildlife. Over 150 species of flowering plants have been recorded in the park, creating an abundance of both
insects
Insects (from Latin ') are hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs of jointed ...
and
butterflies. The bird species include;
mallard,
tufted duck,
little grebe,
great crested grebe,
coot,
moorhen,
kingfisher,
grey heron,
swallow,
swift,
house martin and
kestrel.
June 2007 cracks in the dam
On 25 June 2007, cracks in the reservoir walls were found after
heavy rains and flooding in the area, causing concerns that the reservoir might burst, prompting the evacuation of the three nearest villages
Whiston,
Treeton and
Catcliffe. Several other areas as far away as
Canklow were put on emergency flood alert. The
M1 motorway was also closed between junctions 32 and 36 amid fears over safety. This led to 700 local residents being evacuated from their homes. Fire crews used seventeen high volume pumps to remove four million litres of water per hour from the reservoir.
The possibility of the dam being susceptible to cracking had been discussed in 1970, at a conference about problems with dams of a similar age and construction.
It was feared that, if the reservoir's dam was breached, the sudden flow of water could bring down high voltage power lines, and flood the nearby M1 and a crucial regional electricity substation, which supplies the power to the whole of Sheffield.
References
External links
Ulley Country Park
Ulley Sailing Club* Gold Creek Dam and its Historical Stepped Spillwa
* Chanson, Hubert and Whitmore, Ray L. (1998). Gold Creek Dam and its Unusual Waste Waterway (1890–1997): Design, Operation, Maintenance. Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, 25 (4), 755–768
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Drinking water reservoirs in England
Geography of the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham
Reservoirs in South Yorkshire