The Great Outdoors Spring 2019

I’VE JUST WALKED UP Parkin Clough

• the kind of short, sharp ascent that gets
  a sweat going – to ind myself alone on the
  summit of Win Hill. It’s a day to swell the
  heart: hot, blue and cloudless, with dry
  scents on the breeze and invisible skylarks
  noisy overhead. I reach around for my
  water bottle and take a long, greedy swig.
  My lungs are still catching up, and the
  hydration comes as relief.
  hen I look north and see the place
  from where this water, on its journey
  from land to tap to bottle, may well have
  come. From up here, Ladybower Reservoir
  almost resembles a wide, glassy tarn, its
  banks thronged with pines and its surface
  the dark, quenching blue of an alpine lake.
  It’s been part of the landscape here for
  around 75 years, a lifetime in human terms
  but an eye-blink on the geological scale.
  But does that make it beautiful – or
  not? It’s unquestionably more attractive
  than the cement works visible nearby in
  the Hope Valley, a factory which actually
  predates the National Park movement yet
  still seems horribly incongruous. In many
  ways, however, a reservoir is no less of an
  abnormality. So at what point – if at all –
  does something engineered by humans,
  oten controversially, become a valid part
  of the natural scenery?
  At their simplest, our wild spaces are
  assemblages of rock. Our National Parks,
  our hills and highlands: their limbs and
  bones are moulded stone, chiselled here,
  buckled there, tousled by ire and ice then

heted into position by the passage of time.

he rest, in broad terms, is our doing. We

build villages, bridge rivers, mark trails,

graze livestock and manage forests – all

of which is sometimes for the better and

sometimes for the worse.

A lot gets written about the ways

deforestation and reforestation afect the

character of our landscapes – the same

holds true of manmade constructs like

quarries, visitor centres, ziplines and even

spaceports – but we hear comparatively

little about the long-term role of water

control. Yet, dams and reservoirs hold

oten prominent places in the look and

feel of our National Parks, not least in the

earliest-founded Park of all.

Unfold an OS map of the Peak District

and you’ll ind reservoirs splashed all over

it, a series of baby-blue splodges pooled in

gritstone valleys, curled around land-spurs

and creviced into contour-dips. hese

reservoirs are, of course, a product not just

of planning but of necessity, collectively

providing a reliable water supply for

hundreds of thousands of residents in the

surrounding towns and cities.

I’m making a looped day-walk around

the Upper Derwent Valley, home to

the three interconnected reservoirs

that are ostensibly the most notable in

the region. he oldest, and highest, is

Howden, completed in 1912. his lows

into Derwent, which has been in use

since 1914, before feeding the lower and

larger Ladybower, inished in 1943. hree

reservoirs, three dams and a joint capacity

of almost 465 million litres. Together they

represent the largest area of open water in

the park. hey’re functional – but are they

now so entrenched in their surroundings

that they’ve become a meaningful part of

what makes the Peak the Peak?

AN UNNATURAL LANDSCAPE

his is largely a matter of opinion.

Tom Marshall, who works for the Peak

District National Park, makes the point

that the reservoirs add something to

the park’s looks. “he Upper Derwent

Valley represents one of the most iconic

locations in the Peak District, from the

castle-like towers of the Derwent Dam

to the seven curved arches of the bridge

across Ladybower Reservoir,” he says. “On

a sunny summer’s day, with glistening blue

waters, purple heather-clad moors above

and the surprise of gently curving inlets,

you can be forgiven for thinking you’ve

Derwent Reservoir Dam

PEAK DISTRICT

50 The Great Outdoors Spring 2019