Hallington Reservoirs

About

Hallington Reservoirs are located near the small village of Colwell, Northumberland, England on the B6342 road off the A68 road, and 7 miles (11 km) north of Corbridge. Hallington is actually two small reservoirs: Hallington Reservoir West and Hallington Reservoir East, which are separated by a dam. Water was first collected from the area by an aqueduct intercepting streams, which was built between 1857 and 1859 by the Whittle Dean Water Company. The work included a 3,887-yard (3,554 m) tunnel to allow the water to flow by gravity from the collecting area through a ridge of higher ground to the company's main reservoirs at Whittle Dene. The Newcastle and Gateshead Waterworks Act 1863 (26 & 27 Vict. c. xxxiv) gave authorisation to build Hallington Reservoir, and also changed the company name to the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company. After some delays work started on construction in 1869, and the reservoir was completed in 1872. Water was fed from it to Whittle Dene through the existing aqueduct and tunnel. As the populations of Newcastle and Gateshead continued to grow, more water was needed, and a second reservoir was constructed at Hallington, known as the West Reservoir. Land was purchased in 1880, and work started in 1884, using direct labour under the supervision of John Forster, the resident engineer. Despite appalling weather in the winters of 1886 and 1887, and a poor understanding of soil mechanics which affected the construction of the dams, the reservoir was completed in 1889, with filling beginning in May 1889. Hallington received water from other reservoirs constructed further to the north-west, notably at Swinburn, Colt Crag and Catcleugh. The existing aqueduct and tunnel to Whittle Dene was found to be inadequate for the volume of water needed, and a second tunnel, parallel to the first, was constructed between 1898 and 1905. Narrow gauge railways were built to aid the construction of the first reservoir and the second tunnel. The reservoirs are a designated Local Wildlife Site. The east reservoir is partially surrounded by mixed woodland, and small-fruited yellow sedge, a very rare marginal plant, grows near the dam between the two reservoirs. Several species of waders populated the reservoirs in the autumn, and it provides over-wintering habitat for numerous wildfowl.

The reservoir was built at the end of the 19th century for the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company. The reservoir forms part of a series of reservoirs along the A68 which are connected by tunnels and aqueducts from Catcleugh Reservoir to Whittle Dene; from where drinking water is supplied to Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, and some surrounding areas. The reservoirs that form the chain are, from northwest to southeast: Catcleugh Reservoir → Colt Crag Reservoir → Little Swinburne Reservoir → Hallington Reservoirs → Whittle Dene. Newcastle and Gateshead had been provided with water from reservoirs at Whittle Dene, but the rapid growth of the towns in the mid-nineteenth century, coupled with several years of drought, meant that these were inadequate. The Whittle Dean Water Company, as it was then known, had attempted to get powers to build a reservoir on the Swin Burn, but their Whittle Dean Waterworks Act 1854 (17 & 18 Vict. c. lx) had been amended after Thomas Riddell objected to the reservoir. Although the reservoir had been removed from the act, they were empowered to build an aqueduct, which would intercept a number of streams between Hallington and Ryal, to the north west of Matfen. In order to convey the water to the main reservoirs at Whittle Dean, a tunnel was required through a ridge of higher land. Tenders for the construction of the tunnel were sought in 1856, and from the 25 received, the contract was awarded to R. Mains & Co, who had quoted £7,101 for the work. An arrangement with the Duke of Northumberland was negotiated, to allow a brickworks to be built on his land, as a way of reducing transport costs for materials. Work on the construction began in 1857, but by February 1858 Mains had failed to get very far. He was paid £500 for the work he had done, and a second contract was awarded to Roper & Smith. By March, the new contractor was working on seven of the twelve shafts and some tunnelling had been started, although the works were hampered by the ingress of water. The directors were hoping for quick completion of the tunnel, to prevent difficulties with supplying water to the towns. They offered Roper & Smith an additional £300, if they would set men on to tunnelling from all of the available shafts. Roper & Smith were facing financial difficulties by November 1858, and the tunnel was not expected to be completed for another two years. The directors offered another £1,000 if the work could be completed in a year, but the contractor did not feel able to commit to such a deadline. As a consequence, Richard Cail took over the works on 1 December 1858. At that time, 1,471 yards (1,345 m) of the tunnel had been excavated, out of a total of 3,887 yards (3,554 m). From sums of money paid to Cail, it would appear that he was employing 200 to 300 men on the contract, and the tunnelling progressed well, although there were difficulties at both ends, where the limestone was particularly hard. The tunnel was completed by 31 December 1859, thirteen months after Cail took over the contract. Shortly afterwards, much of the plant used on the project was put up for sale, including nine steam engines, 60 tons of bridge rails, 14 sets of pumps and two brick and tile making machines. The land at Tongues Farm, where the brickworks had been operating, was returned to agricultural use. Many of the workmen had lived in huts in this remote area, and those were demolished. Most of the shafts were arched over and filled in. The main fault identified was a step at the western end, resulting in water standing to a depth of 18 inches (46 cm), which Cail claimed was due to inaccurate drawings. In 1862 the company found out that Riddell would not object to a reservoir at Hallington, and so this was included in the Newcastle and Gateshead Waterworks Act 1863 (26 & 27 Vict. c. xxxiv). The engineer for the company was John Frederick Bateman, but it was Thomas Hawksley who steered the bill through Parliament, so he may have been acting to protect the interests of Newcastle Corporation. The landowners were Henry H. Riddell and Catharine Ann Tevelyan, and following negotiations with both parties, the company paid £9,500 for the land on which to construct the reservoir. The contract ensured that the fishing and shooting rights were retained by the landowners, but were also available to the directors and their friends. Measurement of the flow in various streams in the vicinity had shown that the yield might not be as high as Bateman had estimated. The act authorising the reservoir received royal assent on 11 May 1863, and also changed the name of the company to the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company, reflecting the area they supplied rather than where the water came from. In addition to the reservoir, two aqueducts were authorised, one to the east and another to the west, which fed water into the reservoir. The enabling act had imposed time restrictions on completing the reservoir, and in 1866 the company went back to Parliament for a second act of Parliament, the Newcastle and Gateshead Waterworks Act 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. xlix) which extended the time limits. The contract for construction was given to McGuire, at a cost of £19,900 and work began on the project on 11 September 1869. The directors decided that no payment would be made until the contractor had spent £2,000. Three months later, McGuire was in financial trouble, and the company decided to complete the work themselves. McGuire was hired to oversee the work, and paid a salary of £200 per year. Construction of the reservoir was aided by a narrow gauge railway, some 3 miles (4.8 km) in length, built to bring stone from Moot Law Quarry. A locomotive to work the line was obtained from Black, Hawthorn & Co. of Gateshead. The workers were affected by an outbreak of smallpox, and there were some problems with settlement of the western embankment. Because the company were desperately short of water, they started impounding water in the reservoir in December 1870, when the work done thus far meant that it could safely hold 250 million imperial gallons (1,100 Ml), nearly half of its capacity when it was completed in 1872. Surplus plant was sold off in October 1871, the locomotive was sold in spring 1872, and another sale took place in November 1972. When the work was finished, McGuire was paid his £2,000,. Water from the reservoir was conveyed to Whittle Dean using the aqueduct and tunnel which had been completed in 1859. It is unclear how well the new reservoir performed. It had a capacity of 600 million imperial gallons (2,700 Ml), effectively doubling the amount of water the company could store. Bateman had estimated that the rainfall in the area would be 26 inches (660 mm) per year, whereas records for a ten-year period showed that it was actually 28.8 inches (730 mm). Despite these facts, the company expressed disappointment at the yield it gave, and the Newcastle Daily Journal, in an article sympathetic to the plight of the company published in September 1874, stated that there had been a miscalculation in the yield available. John Furness Tone wrote a letter to Newcastle Council stating that the capacity of the reservoir was reduced due to the fissured nature of the underlying rock in the area. He stated that Bateman had built the reservoir against his advice, which surprised the company's engineer, as Tone and Robert Nicholson had recommended the Hallington reservoir while working for the Whittle Dean Water Company.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.