Langsett Reservoir

Langsett Reservoir
Seen from Hingcliff Common to the west
Location	South Yorkshire
Coordinates	53°29′47″N 1°41′10″W / 53.49639°N 1.68611°W / 53.49639; -1.68611Coordinates: 53°29′47″N 1°41′10″W / 53.49639°N 1.68611°W / 53.49639; -1.68611
Type	reservoir
Primary inflows	Little Don River
Basin countries	United Kingdom
Surface area	51 ha (130 acres)

Langsett Reservoir is in Yorkshire, England, near the villages of Langsett and Upper Midhope, on the edge of the Peak District National Park. The reservoir was constructed between 1898 and 1904, and is now managed by Yorkshire Water. Fed by the Little Don or Porter River, it is around a mile long, and supplies water for Sheffield and Barnsley via the Langsett Treatment Works.

Construction of the reservoir began in 1898, the logistics of getting the workforce and materials to Langsett caused great difficulty as most of them came up from Sheffield. This involved a journey over four different stretches of railway line, the first leg was from Sheffield Midland Station to Deepcar, this was followed by a journey to on the Samuel Fox and Company private line. From the Samuel Fox steelworks a new one mile long line was built to reach the Underbank Reservoir to join up with the Water Authority track up to Langsett Reservoir.

The reservoir is 125 acres (51 hectares) in area with a depth of 97 feet and has a holding capacity of 1,408 million gallons, making it the largest of the water supply reservoirs in the immediate Sheffield district. The catchment area is the Langsett Moors to the west and this covers an area of 5,203 acres (2105 hectares). The embankment is 1156 feet (352 metres) long with a height of 117 feet (35 metres) from the bottom of the old river bed. The embankment is 720 feet (219 metres) wide at the bottom tapering to 36 feet (11 metres) at the top and contains 900,000 cubic yards of infill in the puddle wall and concrete trench, making it one of the largest earth embankments in Great Britain. The minor road (Midhope Cliff Lane) which runs across the embankment is thought to be the longest single carriageway of any reservoir in Great Britain. The embankment road has a sharp bend in it as it joins the A616 main road, this was a last minute change in construction plans, as keeping it straight would have meant the demolition of the Waggon and Horses public house. The reservoir was completed in 1904 when Alderman T.R. Gainsford closed the valve in the Langsett tower and the reservoir started to fill up, he was then presented with a golden key by the engineer William Watts.