Alan's Ramblings - longdendale tag

Three hot days and a thunderstorm

Thu, 12 Aug 2004 01:45:37 GMT

There's an old joke that says that summer in Britain consists of 'three hot days and a thunderstorm', which is exactly what has been happening with the weather over the last week, as a results of us being slapped around by the tail end of Hurricane Alex - on Tuesday we had over 100mm of rain in a day (that's over 4 inches for my colonial friends ;-). In fact only a couple of weeks ago I was out walking and the conditions were more like late October than midsummer - this shot was taken from the top of Lawrence Edge, looking west down the Longdendale reservoir chain.

One of the consequences of the long-standing pollution of the Dark Peak moorland is that it kills the plant cover on the moors, which exposes the bare peat underneath. When there is heavy rain the peat gets rapidly eroded and washed away, as you can see by the colour of the water going down Wildboar Clough:

The Moors for the Future project is trying to repair over 100 years of damage and revegetate the bare peat surfaces. This is partly funded by the Water Authority who have a vested interest, both because the peat silts up the reservoirs, and because it costs money to remove the discolouration from the water.

Now that the fence around Bleaklow has been completed and this year's helicopter reseeding and liming has taken place, it's astonishing how rapidly the vegetation has recovered, especially after last year's disastrous fires. I think the major factor has been the fence, as existing grass which was cropped flat is now 30-40 cms long and covered in seed heads. I've always suspected that the real cause of the problems was largely due to overgrazing by sheep, and the way the vegetation has bounced back proves it. So much for the farming fraternity being 'The guardians of the countryside', as they are always fond of telling us! For a long time they've pointed the finger at walkers as being the cause of the erosion, but it's quite difficult to see how that could be the case - people prefer to walk along well-defined paths, and the moors suffer mostly from widespread surface denudation rather than footpath erosion, which has been reduced anyway since most of the more eroded path has been resurfaced with stone flags.

One benefit of the damp spell we've been having is it keeps everything moist, allowing things like these rather splendid fungi to grow, the big one at the back was 20cm (8") across.

However, it hasn't been raining all the time, last weekend I took the kids out for a wander around Tintwistle Low, the picture below is looking southwards across the valley, over Valehouse reservoir and towards Glossop, which is just out of view over the hill in the foreground. - my house is about 4k (2.5 miles) away from here. The ridge on the far left skyline is the southern edge of Kinder.

A Victorian temple

Tue, 29 Jun 2004 07:21:00 GMT

The weather on Friday evening was gorgeous, so after tea James and I went for a wander along Valehouse and Rhodeswood reservoirs in the Longdendale valley. This valley used to be known as the Cheshire Panhandle - a thin ribbon of land that joined Cheshire to Yorkshire, although it is now part of Derbyshire. Since Roman times (and probably even before that) there was a trade in salt from Cheshire to Yorkshire, and this thin strip meant that there was one fewer sets of tolls and taxes to be paid on the way, as the two counties connected directly.

The view above is across Valehouse reservoir towards Nell's Pike and Bramah Edge, and the little valley on the far right of the picture is called Devil's Elbow. There is a legend as to how it got this name, but I'm less romantic and suspect it's because the road round it has a sharp hairpin, and the name probably refers to the difficulty people had in negotiating it.

The Longdendale valley used to have the River Etherow flowing along it, but in 1848 John Frederick La Trobe Bateman began building the chain of five reservoirs that still provide a large proportion of Manchester's water - a task that was to take 29 years to complete. The picture above is of Valehouse reservoir, with Rhodeswood dam in the distance.

Along the banks of the reservoirs are a series of houses built by the Manchester Water Board to house the reservoir keepers. Most are now private houses, but this one is still owned by United Utilities and lived in by the reservoir keeper, who has a most friendly Collie who insisted that we throw his entire stick collection for him to fetch :-)

It is an amazing testament to Victorian engineering that the works associated with the reservoirs are largely unchanged from when they were built 150 years ago. This is the overflow weir for Rhodeswood reservoir. The building on the right is a new addition - a small hydroelectric power station. In conjunction with similar stations on Torside and Bottoms reservoirs it will supply enough electricity for about 800 houses. This isn't the first such station in the valley - in 1904 one was built at Bottoms reservoir to supply electricity for the small-gauge railway that ran along the north side of the reservoir chain, although this was abandoned in 1938, and the railway was dismantled in 1968. Just above this dam there was a major landslip - the shanty town of New Yarmouth that was built on it moved 8 inches downhill in the course of one night. Bateman brought in two of the best engineers of the day, Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel as consultants to help him come up with a fix, as he notes in his journal:

31st March 1852

The best measures for adoption under these circumstances are now under consideration in connection with Mr Stephenson and Mr Brunel whose advice the Water Committee have allowed me to obtain.

On Saturday I accompanied Mr Stephenson and Mr Brunel over the works describing every part and directing their particular attention to the land-slips. I am to meet them this week in London for the purposes of further consultation.

The solution that was proposed and accepted was to tunnel underneath the landslip and route the watercourse underneath. This was to take an additional 15 months to complete, so the Victorians were just as familiar with unforecast project slippage as we are today!

The Victorians built even the most prosaic of buildings with style and attention to detail - this temple-like structure is the valve house for Rhodeswood reservoir, one of several along the valley. The one at Bottoms reservoir has a rather splendid granite plaque commemorating all the Victorian worthies who were associated with the building of the reservoirs.

More Dark Peak pictures

Mon, 15 Sep 2003 03:52:16 GMT

I've been so busy over the last few months that I haven't managed to get out walking anything like as often as I would like. However over the last two weeks I have managed to get out on a couple of family walks, and a Ranger patrol as well. The weather has been glorious on both weekends, so I've managed to grab a few photos.


View from the top of Didsbury Intake, looking east down the Longdendale valley over Torside reservoir.	View from the top of Didsbury Intake, looking west down the Londgendale valley over (left to right) Rhodeswood, Valehouse and Bottoms reservoirs.	View from the southern edge of Mount Skip, looking towards Tintwistle Knarr

View over Crowden from Oaken Clough (by Laddow Rocks). In the background is the Bleaklow plateau, the two prominent gullies dissecting the edge of the plateau are Shining Clough to the left and Wildboar Clough to the right.	View of Laddow Rocks from the top of Oaken Clough. The rocks are over 200 ft high - note the two tiny figures on the top, who are on the Pennine way.	View up Crowden Great Brook from Black Tor. The nearest rocks are Rakes Rocks, and in the background are Laddow Rocks.

View from Lad's Leap over Torside Reservoir, with Torside Clough behind. The Pennine Way climbs up along Torside Clough onto the Bleaklow plateau in the background.	View of Didsbury Intake from the south side of Valehouse reservoir. The first two photos in this entry were taken from above the rocks you can see in the centre of the skyline.	View eastwards along Valehouse reservoir, from the dam wall. On the left is Tintwistle Knarr and Robinson's Moss.

View eastwards along Rhodeswood reservoir (the next one upstream in the chain from Valehouse). The skyline to left of centre is Highstones Rocks, below which lies a small Roman fort.	One of the residents of Deepclough, on the south side of Valehouse reservoir.