Dowdeswell Reservoir

Dowdeswell Reservoir and former water treatment works lie below the parish of Dowdeswell in Gloucestershire. They were originally built by Cheltenham Corporation to supply the town of Cheltenham with drinking water (since 1886) and subsequently became part of the Severn Trent network.

It is currently owned and managed by the Environment Agency and is managed as a 'balancing pond' for the water catchment from the east end of the valley.

Severn Trent closed the water treatment works with the commissioning of the Mythe Treatment Works on the river Severn, and the reservoir itself became a flood storage reservoir for the River Chelt in an attempt to protect the town of Cheltenham from flooding from the east. The town nonetheless suffered flooding in the July 2007 floods though this was not only from the river Chelt at Dowdeswell, but from all the streams which join the Chelt within the town and its outskirts. The Dowdeswell 'balancing pond' only deals with the Chelt (really a stream at this point in its life), Dowdeswell stream and runoff from the limestone scarp.

The Cotswold Way National Trail runs alongside the dam end of the reservoir (below the dam embankment) and alongside the western edge of Dowdeswell Woods.

The reservoir and wood are listed in the ‘Cotswold District’ Local Plan 2001-2011 (on line) as Key Wildlife Sites.

They are near Arle Grove nature reserve.

There is a site management plan from 1975 for the Dowdeswell Reservoir Nature Reserve. There are site management plans for the Dowdeswell Wood Nature Reserve for 1993 to 2002 and 2002 to 2011 along with various annual reports.

These areas (Reservoir, Residuum, Scobb's Grove) (grid reference SO997198) were established as a 9.3-hectare (23-acre) nature reserve with the Gloucestershire Trust for Nature Conservation (now the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust) in 1973 under agreement with the North-West Gloucestershire Water Board originally.

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