Rocking at the reservoir Traditional Cache

A lovely walk round the reservoir taking in lovely views and a few caches.

A meduim size container with log book and swaps and a little something for the FTF.

A little bit of history about the area.

Valehouse Reservoir is over 12 metres deep when full, and took four years to construct, being completed in 1869. It has an earthen construction with an inner clay core making it impermeable to water. Here (above/below/right/left) you can see workers treading down the clay (or ‘puddling’) into the inner core of the dam which was hard manual labour, and dangerous too at the lower levels of the core. Such hard and dangerous work led to many labour disputes during the scheme - in the Spring of 1868 workers engaged on Valehouse and Bottoms reservoirs downed tools, having decided they had worked long enough for too little pay. With added pressure from the Glossop Branch of the Mason’s Society, the Manchester Corporation Waterworks Committee was persuaded to increase each man’s weekly wages to one pound and 13 shillings, in return for starting 20 minutes earlier each day except Mondays.