button to main menu  Gents Mag 1877 part 2 p.633
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Gentleman's Magazine 1877 part 2 p.633

  Thirlmere Reservoir
  opposition
Thirlmere Reservoir


TABLE-TALK.

DUNMAIL RAISE and the Valley of Wythburn are threatened next year with an invasion which has excited the indignation not only of the principal dwellers in one of the loveliest nooks in the very heart of the English lake district, but has awakened painful surprise and opposition all over the country, wherever the love of natural beauty, and the reverence for famous men whose footsteps have doubly hallowed it, are not yet quite extinct. A ruthless piece of vandalism is contemplated which it is to be hoped may yet be baffled by a firm and united resistance. Parliament is to be asked in the approaching session to empower the Manchester Corporation to turn the beautiful lake of Thirlmere into a reservoir for supplying with water, not Manchester alone - for that city, they own, has an ample supply for the next twenty years to come - but the various towns en route. Only dire and extreme necessity, and an absolute impossibility of obtaining water elsewhere, could justify this proposal. Neither of these conditions fortunately exists. "Not one tithe," as Mr. Somervell, the chief and indefatigable opponent of the scheme, has pointed out, "of the moorland available for the supply of water of Manchester, between the Lune and South Lancashire, has been utilised as yet." To carry out the scheme proposed a huge embankment would have to be reared to the height of at least 70 feet, thus lengthening the lake from 2 1/2 to 4 1/2 miles, and deepening it to the extent of 60 or 70 feet. This would have the effect of placing under water the whole valley, and the beauties of the spot would be buried in a deep dark reservoir. "It is the intention of the Waterworks Committee," naively remarks the Cumberland Times, "to substitute for the present tortuous up-and-down track a straight road cut on a level line around the slopes of Helvellyn. Below it the lake, enlarged to more than twice its present dimensions, will assume a grandeur of appearance in more striking accordance with its majestic surroundings. HOW THE VALLEY WILL LOOK IN THE DRY SUMMER SEASON, WHEN THE RESERVOIR IS HALF EMPTIED, HAS YET TO BE ASCERTAINED." Another ground of opposition to the scheme is its danger as well as it unsightliness. In the very possible and even probable event of
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