Technical Site Visit by
Railway & Canal Historical Society
Saturday 4th October 2014 at 11.00am
Belvide Reservoir
Lead by David Brown, Principal Reservoir Engineer, Canal & River Trust
The visit will consist of a walk of about 6 miles round Belvide Reservoir, one of two reservoirs on
the Birmingham & Liverpool Junction Canal (now the Shropshire Union Canal) led by David Brown,
Principal Reservoir Engineer, Canal & River Trust. The walk will start and end in Brewood and will
include a section on the canal then the 180 acre, 500 million gallon reservoir with its 46 foot high
by 1120 yard long dam and its grade II* listed valve house. Details of its history, construction and
subsequent modifications will be available on the day.
This is the reservoir that Tim Blower has referenced in his Dams on Mercia Mudstone papers,
where a borrow pit in the reservoir basin near to the dam went right through the weathered zones
and leakage through rock fissures under the dam into a ‘bottomless morass’ at the downstream toe
has been a feature since construction. Further notes on Belvide are provided overleaf.
Reservoir
Category
Height
of
dam
(m)
Length of
dam(s)
(m)
Volume
above
natural
ground
(m3)
Surface
Area
(km2)
Direct
Catchment
(km2)
Indirect
Catchment
(km2)
Annual
rainfall
(mm)
Belvide
A
14.0
1,025
2,271,700
0.74
5.6
2.4
762
Arrangements for the visit:
Meet at the Bridge Inn, 22 High Green, Brewood, Stafford, Staffordshire ST19 9BD (Map Ref. SJ
880 089) at 11.00am where parking is available. If travelling by public transport, meet at
Wolverhampton railway station no later than 10.15 to walk into town for the 10.30 bus (service 878)
to Brewood with a 5 minute walk to the Bridge Inn. An optional late lunch will be available at the
Bridge Inn on our return or bring your own packed lunch. Transport back to Wolverhampton will be
available as required.
For further information and to register your interest contact:
David Brown by email: david.brown@canalrivertrust.org.uk
Any views or opinions expressed on any matters by the presenters or participants during or in connection with this visit and presentation are solely the
views of the authors of the respective comments and/or opinions and must not be taken to be the views of the ICE or the British Dam Society or any
other organisation. ICE and the British Dam Society make no representations, warranties or assurances concerning any information provided in these
presentations and accept no responsibility for the content and/or accuracy.
Belvide Reservoir
Railway & Canal Historical Society visit 2014
The design of the Birmingham & Liverpool Junction Canal included two reservoirs, Knighton and
Belvide. Some earlier canals had suffered from inadequate water supplies and reservoirs had to be
built shortly after the canal opened.
The Act of Parliament for the canal was passed in 1826 but it took until 1835 before the canal was
fully open following difficulties in constructing earthworks on an unprecedented scale. Thomas
Telford was the engineer and Alexander Easton the resident engineer.
Knighton Reservoir was completed by 1832 and a reservoir much smaller than the present one, 8
feet deep with an area of 49 acres was finished at Belvide. The contractor was John Wilson, later
W Wilson. It was not big enough and also suffered problems of erosion of the headbank by waves.
William Cubitt, Telford’s successor, proposed facing the dam with Staffordshire blue bricks to
protect it against ‘surf’. In 1834, the decision was taken to raise the dam by 3 feet and it was raised
by 10 feet in 1841. To avoid the need to place new fill for the raised embankment in the reservoir
basin, a brick retaining wall, 1,100 yards long, was built on the upstream face. The valve-house
which had been at the base of the original smaller embankment was retained in situ using a curved
retaining wall to contain the fill. This valve-house, which is of cylindrical form in ashlar masonry
with a cast iron domed roof, was listed Grade II* in1993.
The original draw-off has a chain operated teapot lid valve at the upstream end and a conventional
gate valve at the downstream end. This is the same layout as at Telford’s slightly earlier Rotton
Park Reservoir, on the Birmingham Canal. When the dam was raised, a second outlet was added.
This has a sliding valve on the upstream end of the pipe.
The reservoir is in a wide flat valley and the increased water levels necessitated the provision of
back ditches along both banks of the reservoir. Then reservoir levels are high, these act as land
drains. When the water levels are low, the back ditches are turned into the reservoir using sluices
to increase the rate of impoundment. To further improve the yield of the reservoir, a stream in a
parallel valley, the Stinking Lake feeder, was diverted to the reservoir. A pumping station at the toe
of the dam, intended to store surplus water from the canal, was built in 1958 but was never used.
The spillway, which had been moved when the dam was enlarged, was rebuilt in 1890/1.
As a result of the 1930 Reservoirs (Safety Provisions) Act and the 1975 Reservoirs Act, the
reservoir has been inspected by many eminent engineers including W T Halcrow (later Sir William
Halcrow), H D Morgan, N J Cochrane, J L Beaver and most recently Alan Warren. Leakage at the
highest part of the dam into a ‘bottomless morass’ at the toe of the embankment has been studied
in depth. It was concluded that the fill for the embankment had been won from borrow pits in the
reservoir basin close to the headbank. These had been dug too deep, through the upper clay strata
exposing fissured rock below. The leakage passes through the rock under the dam.
The height of the dam is 46 feet, the length of dam 1120 yards, the storage capacity 500 million
gallons and the surface area 180 acres.
Any views or opinions expressed on any matters by the presenters or participants during or in connection with this visit and presentation are solely the
views of the authors of the respective comments and/or opinions and must not be taken to be the views of the ICE or the British Dam Society or any
other organisation. ICE and the British Dam Society make no representations, warranties or assurances concerning any information provided in these
presentations and accept no responsibility for the content and/or accuracy.