Building record MDR23104 - Ambergate Covered Reservoir, Southwest of Nick Lane, Crich

Ambergate Covered Reservoir, Southwest of Nick Lane, Crich, opened in 1910. 'Ambergate Reservoir was completed in 1910 and had a capacity of 28 million gallons and was formed on a ledge cut into the hillside close to Crich and above the railway station at Ambergate. The landscape survey identified industrial features associated with the building of the reservoir, which included, amongst other features, quarries, waggonways and spoil heaps. It was a ‘built-up’ reservoir with walls [8.53 m] high and with a maximum thickness of [4.57 m] and it was covered-in since the water, when it reached Ambergate, had been filtered and purified. Clean water entered the covered reservoir via a deep Inlet Well, it was then stored in the large covered tank, the reinforced concrete roof of which was supported on large numbers of brick columns and steel girders, and pumped out to pipelines to Nottingham, Derby and Leicester from a specially constructed Gauge Well. There had been little change to the reservoir and it remained largely as built. However, surviving original design drawings, from the Severn Trent archive, suggest that there was some modification to these plans.' (1)