A major change to the Upper Derwent landscape came in the first half of the 20th century with the building of three large dams to create Howden, Derwent and Ladybower Reservoirs. They were built by the Derwent Valley Water Board to supply water to Sheffield, Derby, Nottingham and Leicester.

Ornately decorated waterworks buildings below Ladybower Dam

Howden Dam under construction in 1909

Howden and Derwent dams were built between 1901 and 1916 of huge Millstone Grit blocks quarried from near Grindleford and transported on a specially built railway line. They are finished with `Victorian Gothic’ architectural embellishments including towers, crenulations, arched windows and buttresses. Between 250 and 500 people were housed in a specially built village called ‘Tin Town’. Ladybower dam was built between 1935 and 1945.

The site of Derwent village exposed during a summer drought

The reservoirs caused the depopulation of much of the valley with 22 farmsteads and both Derwent and Ashopton hamlets being abandoned and demolished. Most of the productive farmland was flooded and many of the surrounding fields were planted with conifers to reduce soil erosion. From the flooding of Ladybower, families were re-housed in the purpose-built settlement at Yorkshire Bridge. Burials from Derwent graveyard were exhumed and reburied at Bamford.

Elmin Pitts was one of many farms bought and demolished by the Derwent Valley Water Board

This is now the landscape visitors are familiar with in the Upper Derwent – the plantations fringing the reservoirs and the impressive towers of Derwent and Howden dams rising towards the sky. Strange to think that it is little over 100 years old.

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