History of the Huddersfield Water Supplies
By T. W. Woodhead

CHAPTER IV - WATERWORKS COMMISSIONERS

COMMISSIONERS OF THE WESSENDEN AND THE HOLME RESERVOIRS

At this period, the value of maintaining a regular water supply for trade purposes was appreciated as shown by the efforts made to construct reservoirs in both the Colne and the Holme drainage areas; also to reduce dangers of flooding during heavy storms. In the Colne drainage by the Wessenden Act of 1836, the Wessenden Commissioners were constituted and empowered to make and maintain a reservoir called the Wessenden Reservoir. It was the first reservoir made in this valley and is the one we now know as the Wessenden Old Reservoir; it has a capacity of a hundred and seven million gallons. (See Fig 28. below)

Figure 28. Wessenden Old Reservoir

Early efforts in the Holme Valley illustrate not only the need for a constant supply so as to ensure more regular employment, but also some of the difficulties to be overcome in constructing reservoirs in these faulted Gritstone valleys, which in one case was attended by tragic consequences. A detailed account is given by Morehouse, from which these extracts are taken. "In the year 1837, on the 8th June, an Act of Parliament received the Royal assent, authorizing the construction of several large reservoirs within the graveship of Holme, for the better supply of water to the mills in the Holme Valley during the dry season.

The Act gave power to construct eight reservoirs on the streamlets emptying themselves into the River Holme ; with an authority to borrow money to the amount of £40,000 for their construction. The superintendence and perpetual management of this undertaking was vested in Commissioners, under the title "Commissioners of the Holme Reservoirs."*

The preamble of the Act recites that, "Whereas there are many mills, factories and other premises situate near the line or course of the overflowing of the waters in the River Holme," etc., "and of streams flowing into the said River Holme, using water wheels, engines, or other machines worked by water flowing along such streams and brooks; and whereas the supply of water to such mills is very irregular and during the summer months is frequently insufficient for effectually working the wheels, engines, and machines in such mills, factories and premises, which irregularity might be greatly remedied by making and maintaining an embankment and reservoir on the brook called Digley Brook, at Bilberry Mill," etc. The Act then goes on to appoint commissioners, consisting of mill owners and occupiers of falls of water in the district of the value of £100 a year and upwards.

The estimated cost of the reservoirs which the Act empowered the Commissioners to make was early discovered to be wholly inadequate and three only of the eight reservoirs were completed, viz., the Boshaw (56 million gallons), each situated on the largest tributaries of the River Holme, within the graveship and made at the cost of £70,000.

The construction of Bilberry Reservoir (See Fig 29. below)was let to Messrs. Sharp and Sons, of Dewsbury, in 1838, for £9,324, but in consequence of some dispute arising during the making of the embankment about a defect in the foundation, owing to a spring in the centre of the puddle-bank, the contract was broken and the Commissioners were involved in a chancery suit. The contract was afterwards re-let to Messrs. David Porter and Brothers, and by the advice of Mr. Leather of Leeds, engineer to the Commissioners, a coffer-dam was sunk in the centre of the embankment to get to the seat of the spring and means adopted which it was then hoped would remedy the defect. These means proved, however, ineffectual, and the embankment leaked more or less up to the time of bursting.

Figure 29. Bilberry Reservoir

The test came in the early days of February, 1852, when during heavy rains the reservoir on Wednesday, the 4th, was filling at the rate of eighteen inches an hour. About one o’clock the following morning, February 5th, the embankment gave way and the water in the reservoir, estimated at 86,248,000 gallons and about three hundred thousand tons in weight rushed with fearful velocity through the broken embankment. Two large pieces of rock, each weighing four to five tons, were torn from the side of the embankment and deposited a quarter of a mile away. Eighty-one people lost their lives and great damage was done to the property. (Full story here)

*Later the Holme Valley Reservoirs Board

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