Thruscross Reservoir /1

10 July 2005

Lost and found

A surprisingly fascinating walk around one of the reservoirs in the Washburn
Valley, where the water covers the remains of a lost village.

As
there has been talk elsewhere in the UK of water shortages and hosepipe
bans, I thought we should go and check how Yorkshire Water’s reservoirs
were doing, to see if there was enough for me to water my garden this summer.
(Okay, it wasn’t really that, we just wanted a nice walk round some water.)
This reservoir apparently has a capacity of 7842tcm / 1725.2 million gallons,
which seems like quite a lot, but then Yorkshire’s a big place.

We
could see from the exposed banks that it wasn’t quite full. On the banks
in one area were the remains of trees – just the stumps, obviously from
trees cut down some time ago, and presumably submerged most of the time
when the water level is higher.

When this reservoir was created in the 1960s, the village of West End was demolished and flooded. Presumably too, the trees on the lower areas of the valley side had to be cut down.

We
thought we’d leave the path and walk along this sandy area by the water’s
edge. As we walked along the banks, it became obvious that someone had been
arranging a display of found sculpture. Pieces of broken pottery and other
objects presumably found on the shores had been arranged into sculptures
on the rocks and on the ground. We could see, underfoot, more pieces of
broken pottery. It was quite magical, to think that all these things were
perhaps from the abandoned, submerged, village of West End.

A
large dead tree branch had been placed back in the earth upright, and from
it hung this splendid battered item, rather like a bauble on a Christmas tree. Closer inspection revealed it
says ‘PLAYERS PLEASE’ around the rim. Players – a brand of cigarettes. And
this an old metal ashtray, we guess. How it found its way into the reservoir
is a matter of conjecture. It could have been from the old village, or it
could equally well have been hurled into the water by a passing drunken
person who had stolen it from a pub, sometime in the last 40 years.

The banks also displayed interesting arrangements of stones, as in this photo (left) where pieces of coloured glass had been placed on the broadest stone at the base. On the banks also were pieces of rusted metal (photo, right), perhaps some remnant from the buildings that were once here.

This rusted item on the left looks rather more identifiable – a horseshoe I think. The colours of rusting iron against the sandy earth here were rather beautiful.

And the other photo – my own rather meagre effort, from pieces of pottery
collected from the banks. It seemed wrong to leave without adding my small
contribution to this outdoor gallery.

More information

The reservoir is owned and managed by Yorkshire Water. The Yorkshire Water website has maps of routes around Thruscross and other reservoirs.