LONDON’S NEW RESERVOIR.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LI, Issue 16781, 14 July 1925, Page 7

LONDON’S NEW RESERVOIR.

COVERS 800 ACRES. OPENED BY KING GEOBGE. WHOLE VILLAGE MOVED. LONDON, June 13.—After ten years’ work, London’s new reservoir was. opened to-day by King George. It is one of the biggest- engineering feats ever earned out. The inlet beneath llni . new bridge murks the power of the Thames, lor lieu- is ihe beginning of the intake elianiiel which goes to the great pumping station, about three-quarters of a mile away, allowing millions of gallons of water to pour into the largest a i t ilic.all v made reservoir in the world. ' RIVER DIVERTED. In the making of this mighty hole strange things nave happened. The river Ash was in the way: it had to he removed, and, cleverly (liveried, it now takes a- new course. Cottages which had weathered storms for hundreds of years were pulled down, hut their old carving is preserved. What was once the village of Littleton no longer exists, all that is left is the church, there is no [lost office, no inn. It may he a year before the work is finished. The concrete lining lias In he completed, hut already the sides are partly lined and in places topped with a curly rim which is so designed that on stormy days Ihe turbulent water will he thrown hack into the reservoir as it beats against the edge. FOUR MILES AROUND. It is four miles round the rim. Superintending work-in-progress inspectors have often walked three times a day round the reservoir, where, at times, more than 2000 men lia.ve been engaged in the task of preparing London’s new source of water supply. During the war work was interrupted. Sleepers from the railway line which ran round the excavations were recognised by some of the employees of the Metropolitan Water Board near Albert, France, during the -Great War. Its war service finished, the railway was returned to perform its original duty at Littleton. The pumping station is a place of dramatic *pqwer, and to the uninitiated. of dramatic mystery. The engines are sl6am driven. The hungry furnaces will he fed daily bv fifty tons of coal. Every pint of water that so passes is automatically registered so that at any moment, the quantity flowing into the reservoir may he known to the officials, not only at Littleton, but in London. COVERS 800 ACRES. The centrifugal pumps are giants of their kind; the pipes through which lliev will deliver the water are five feet in diameter, while the area covered hv the reservoir is 800 acres. To day men were testing the engines. On the day on which the reservoir is formally 6mined a certain quantity of water will pass into the basin that once was half village, half meadows, and those who have .watched the work that began ten years ago will know that at Inst iheir great- task approaches) its end.