Lower Laithe Reservoir

This is something the Brontës would not have known, even though it is only a short hop over the moor from the Brontë Falls: Lower Laithe Reservoir. Built in 1925 to supply water for the nearby towns and industries of the Aire valley, the Sladen valley was dammed and flooded. There are some old pictures here that show the area prior to it being flooded. The mills and expanding towns, from the Industrial Revolution onwards, were greedy for water. The hills and moors of the Upper Pennines are dotted with small reservoirs, so that some call it 'the little Lake District'.