Walking at Swineshaw reservoir in Glossop North Derbyshire.

Swineshaw Reservoir is a fairly small reservoir near Glossop in north Derbyshire.

Some quick internet research revealed that In 1837, 50 local mill owners and gentlemen, known as the “Glossop Commissioners”, sought and then obtained an Act of Parliament to build the Glossop Reservoirs.

Hurst Reservoir was on the Hurst Brook and Mossy Lea Reservoir was to take water from the Shelf Brook. The Wikipedia entry for Swineshaw Reservoir goes onto say that ‘…. only the Hurst reservoir was constructed before the money ran out. Mossy Lea Reservoir was constructed privately by the Duke of Norfolk. Swineshaw, on Swineshaw Clough, was adopted in 1864 by the Glossop Water Company to provide drinking water for Glossop’

Later the reservoir was taken over by the Glossop Corporation Waterworks (1929) and this later became part of the Manchester Corporation Waterworks (1959)

No longer in service

None of the three reservoirs are still in service and used by the water authorities.  Its a nice enough walk up there and of particular interest were the peacocks that live in the grounds of a private house that is walked past on the way to the reservoir, and also and for good measure the field just before that has what appear to be Ostrich in, but are actually more properly known as Rheas – a South American type Ostrich, you can read more about the Rheas bird at this link.

Picture gallery

Some pictures below from our walk on what was a cool and damp day – but most enjoyable nevertheless.  To read a more recent post – click here and follow our Belgium and Germany trip.