One of the four tours on the second day of the British Dam Society conference in Leeds in September 2012 visited three dams in the Holme valley: Brownhill, Ramsden and Riding Wood.
The party enjoyed an interesting day inspecting three dams in the Holme valley. Apart from the dams, the valley is famous for being the location for the filming of Last of the Summer Wine, the longest-running comedy programme in Britain and the longest-running sitcom in the world.
Our first dam was Brownhill, where an enlarged spillway was completed last year. Also of interest was the evidence of significant settlement and deformation in the centre of the dam since it was built in 1932.
After an excellent lunch at a local pub, we went on to visit Ramsden and Riding Wood reservoirs. At Riding Wood a new spillway has been constructed from the left-hand side of the dam discharging by way of a long straight channel and a plunge pool into Ramsden reservoir. Ramsden reservoir (Figure 1) had its spillway upgraded in 2008 with a new overflow and deep channel at the right-hand mitre. The old spillway on the left-hand side is retained but restricted in its capacity to enable the by-wash to continue to function.
Thanks are due to Tim Dyke and Newman Booth of Yorkshire Water for leading the tour and ably answering lots of questions.
