3/12/2024 0 Comments The Lost Village instalingThe Water Board had earmarked an isolated area higher up the valley to create two initial dams and the Howden and Upper Derwent reservoirs, and the small number of residents from affected farms and smallholdings were moved down the valley to safety at Derwent and Ashopton. Ladybower Reservoir's low water levels reveal abandoned villageīefore the two World Wars, Derwent and nearby Ashopton village had seemed as permanent as the Peak District moorlands above them, with their centuries-old stone buildings and long-established communities. Some swore they could hear the church bell ringing out across the waters – although the bell had been removed before the village was drowned. From then on, nothing of Derwent was visible, except for the ghostly church spire that poked out of the reservoir during dry periods when the water level dropped.Īt these times, locals would return to gaze at the eerie spectacle in morbid fascination, as if to remind themselves the village had once been a reality. By 1945, Derwent village no longer existed and in its place lies a sheet of blue: Ladybower Reservoir.Īfter completing the dam needed to create the reservoir in 1943, rains, mountain run-off and rivers filled the valley – and slowly, the waters rose. Derwent Valley Water Board had, despite protests, flooded the valley and the village of Derwent to provide water for the growing cities in the English Midlands. The lanes of gritstone cottages, the church and old schoolhouse, the sheep grazing on hillsides and the sloping pastures.
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