Thirlmere is a reservoir in the Cumberland district in Cumbria and the English Lake District. The Helvellyn ridge lies to the east of Thirlmere. To the west of Thirlmere are a number of fells; for instance, Armboth Fell and Raven Crag both of which give views of the lake and of Helvellyn beyond.
The reservoir runs roughly south to north and is bordered on the eastern side for much of its length by the A591 road and on the western side by a minor road. It occupies the site of a former natural lake: this had a fordable waist so narrow that it was (and is) sometimes regarded as two lakes. In the 19th century Manchester Corporation constructed a dam at the northern end, raising the water level, flooding the valley bottom, and creating a reservoir to provide the growing industrial city of Manchester with water supplies via the Thirlmere Aqueduct.
The reservoir and the aqueduct still provide water to the Manchester area, but under the Water Act 1973 ownership passed to the North West Water Authority; as a result of subsequent privatisation and amalgamation they (and the catchment area surrounding the reservoir) are now owned and managed by United Utilities, a private sector water and wastewater company.
The natural lake
<blockquote>We now approached the lake of Wyburn, or Thirlmer, as it is sometimes called; an object every way suited to the ideas of desolation which surround it, No tufted verdure graces banks, nor hanging woods throw rich reflections on surface: but every form which it suggests, is savage, and desolate. </blockquote>
Before the construction of the reservoir there was a smaller natural lake, known by various names including Leathes Water, Wythburn Water Thirle Water, and Thirlmere. (The Leathes were the lords of the manor, the valley in which the lake sat was Wythburndale (after the hamlet of Wythburn at its head), 'Thirlmere' probably is derived from " 'the lake with/at the narrowing' from OE þyrel 'aperture', pierced hole' plus OE mere 'lake'") The Ordnance Survey map of 1867 shows a single lake (Thirlmere) with its narrowest point at Wath Bridge roughly level with Armboth; at this point "The water is shallow and crossed by a bridge, so that piers are easily built and connected with little wooden bridges, and that difficult problem in engineering - crossing a lake - accomplished" and the map shows both a bridge and a ford between the west and east banks. ('Wath' = 'ford' in Cumbrian placenames: the 'Bridge' itself can be seen in a photograph of the pre-reservoir valley: it was repeatedly carried away by floods (e.g. in November 1861.))
Because of this constriction there were "practically at low water two lakes, the river connecting them being crossed at the Narrows by a little wood and stone bridge", and the natural lake is sometimes characterised as two lakes. The stream exiting the lake (St John's Beck) flowed north to the River Greta, which flowed west through Keswick to join the Cumbrian Derwent.
The 'Thirlmere scheme'
Use as a reservoir suggested
thumb|Charles Henry Gordon-Lennox, 6th Duke of Richmond, 6th Duke of Lennox, and 1st Duke of Gordon - chairman of the Royal Commission on Water Supply
In 1863, a pamphlet urged that Thirlmere and Haweswater should be made reservoirs, and their water conveyed (via Ullswater (used as a distributing reservoir)) to London to supply it with a day of clean water; the cost of the project was put at ten million pounds. The scheme was considered by a Royal Commission on Water Supply chaired by the Duke of Richmond, but its report of 1869 dismissed such long-distance schemes, preferring to supply London by pumping from aquifers and abstraction from the Thames. The scheme continued to be proposed; by 1876, it had grown to include a branch feeder from Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake) and the cost had risen accordingly to £m 13.5; however nothing ever came of it.
The original scope specified for the Duke of Richmond's royal commission had been the water supply of London and other large cities, but the commission had found itself fully occupied by consideration of the metropolitan water supply. For water supply elsewhere, its report had merely made general recommendations: <blockquote>... that no town or district should be allowed to appropriate a source of supply which naturally and geographically belongs to a town or district nearer to such source, unless under special circumstances which justify the appropriation.
That when any town or district is supplied by a line or conduit from a distance, provision ought to be made for the supply of all places along such lines.
That on the introduction of any provincial water bill into Parliament, attention should be drawn to the practicability of making the measure applicable to as extensive a district as possible, and not merely to the particular town. at the instigation of their chairman (a native of Cumberland with a second home at Portinscale on Derwentwater), the Waterworks Committee of Manchester Corporation proposed to supply Manchester with water from a Thirlmere reservoir.
thumb|J F Bateman (in 1859): engineer for the Longdendale reservoirs, advisor on the Thirlmere Scheme
In their report to the full council, it was noted that water consumption had been a day in 1855, a day in 1865, in 1874 a day on average with peak demand a day. The reliable supply from the Longdendale reservoirs in periods of drought was only per day, but in the last two years, demand had increased by a day. Demand therefore was predicted to exceed the reliable supply in about seven years; it would take at least that to bring any major additional water supply on stream. Any major new works should aim to secure adequate supplies for the next thirty or fifty years; these could only be found in the mountains and lakes of northern Lancashire, Westmorland or Cumberland. Only Ullswater, Haweswater and Thirlmere were high enough to supply Manchester by gravity flow; the natural drainage of all three was to the north, but Thirlmere lay immediately below the pass of Dunmail Raise and the engineering to bring its waters south of the watershed would be significantly easier than for (for example) Ullswater. Thirlmere water had been analysed by Professor Roscoe who pronounced it superior even to that of Loch Katrine and thus one of the best waters known.
Speaking to the report, the chairman of the Waterworks Committee noted that the catchment area was over (in which there were not more than 200 inhabitants) and the annual rainfall about ; a day could be collected and sent to Manchester; unlike the massive dams in Longdendale, all that was needed was a wall fifty-foot high across a gorge he could throw a stone across. As regards aesthetic objections:
was such that there was little truly local opposition to the scheme. To the south, the only town council in Westmorland (Kendal) voted to support the scheme (hoping that a supply from the aqueduct would be a cheaper solution to their water supply problems than the new waterworks which would otherwise be needed): a local paper noted that "the inhabitants of Westmorland are not much alarmed at it …so far they have stolidly refused to lose their tempers, or even waste many words over it". At a meeting to form a Lake District Association to promote tourism in the region, it was quickly agreed not to take a view on the Thirlmere scheme; otherwise the association would break up before it was fairly started.
The aqueduct, however, was objected to by owners of land through which it would pass: under normal procedure, they would be the only objectors with sufficient locus standi to be heard against the private bill necessary to authorise the scheme. Those who objected to the change in the appearance (as they saw it, destruction of the beauty) of the lake would be unable to demonstrate any financial interest in the matter. They therefore needed to stop the project by mobilising opinion against the scheme; in 1876 this – together with economic hard times – had seen off a scheme to link the existing railheads at Keswick and Windermere by a railway running alongside Thirlmere.
"If every person who has visited the Lake District, in a true nature-loving spirit would be ready, when the right time comes, to sign an indignant protest against the scheme, surely there might be some hope..." that Parliament would reject the bill, urged one correspondent, who went on to urge legal protection for natural beauty, along the lines of that proposed for ancient monuments by Sir John Lubbock or for the Yellowstone area in the United States. Octavia Hill called for a committee to organise (and collect funds for) an effective opposition. A meeting at Grasmere in September 1877, considered a report on the Thirlmere scheme from H J Marten CE and formed a Thirlmere Defence Association (TDA) with over £1,000 of subscriptions pledged. By February 1878, members of the TDA included Thomas Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, William Morris, Thomas Woolner R.A., John Gilbert R.A. and Derwent Coleridge.
Aesthetic opposition to the scheme was aggravated by the suggestion that Manchester Corporation would improve on nature and varied in tone and thoughtfulness: the Carlisle Patriot thought Manchester welcome to take all the water it needed, provided only that it must not "destroy or deface those natural features which constitute the glory of the Lake District" and advised against any attempt to mitigate the offence by tree-planting; Thirlmere had "..a character of its own which makes the suggested artificiality intolerable. The rocky walls that hem it in boast no verdure: wild precipices, grand in the austerity of their barrenness cast their reflections on the mere, and by their wildness scout the municipal device of decoration.."
thumb|left|Ruskin: "as to these Manchester robbers ... there is 'no profit' in the continuance of their lives" right|thumb|James Fraser, Bishop of Manchester: "two millions of people had a right to the necessaries of life from any portion of England"
John Ruskin denounced Manchester in general <blockquote>I am quite aware that there are many amiable persons in Manchester - and much general intelligence. But, taken as a whole, I perceive that Manchester can produce no good art, and no good literature; it is falling off even in the quality of its cotton; it has reversed, and vilified in loud lies, every essential principle of political economy; it is cowardly in war, predatory in peace... The Mancunian press thought it detected a similar (if less blatant) prejudice and an 'essentially Cockney agitation' when papers such as the Pall Mall Gazette editorialised "The visible universe was not created merely to supply materials towards the manufacture of shoddy"
Speaking at the opening of the new Town Hall in Manchester, the Bishop of Manchester declared himself surprised at the language of the scheme's opponents, many of whom, he thought, had no idea where Thirlmere was </blockquote>
Private bill of 1878
Manchester gave the required notice of its forthcoming bill in November 1877. It sought powers to dam the outflow from Thirlmere and to divert into it a number of neighbouring gills which did not already drain into it, to build an aqueduct from Thirlmere to Manchester, and to extract water from Thirlmere. In addition, a section of the existing Keswick-Ambleside turnpike north of Wythburn was to be diverted to run at a higher level, and a new carriage road was to be built on the western side of Thirlmere. Compulsory purchase powers were sought to allow these works to be carried out and to allow Manchester Corporation to buy and keep land in the Thirlmere catchment area.
In response, the TDA issued a statement of its case. The scheme would destroy the distinctive charm of Thirlmere which was 'entirely free from modern erections out of harmony with the surroundings'; raising the level would destroy the many small bays that gave the west shore its character, the 'picturesque windings' of the existing road on the east side were to be replaced by a dead level road, at the northern end, 'one of the sweetest glens in Cumberland' was to be the site of an enormous embankment. Worst of all, in a dry season, the lake would be drawn down to its old level, exposing over of 'oozy mud and rotting vegetation'. "Few persons, whose taste is not utterly uneducated, are likely to share the confidence of the water committee in their power to enhance the loveliness of such a scene, or will think that the boldest devices of engineering skill will be other than a miserable substitute for the natural beauties they displace." Manchester also sold water to other water authorities without any specific parliamentary (or governmental) authorisation. In 1862, the Stockport District Waterworks Company went to law to have the purchase of Manchester water by the Stockport Water Company stopped as outside the powers of the SWC and Manchester. The case was not heard, because the SDWC could not demonstrate any consequent financial loss: only the Attorney General could pursue the question of whether Manchester Corporation was exceeding its powers. It was confident that the general trading powers granted it under the Manchester Corporation Waterworks Act 1847 (10 & 11 Vict. c. cciii) covered the situation; certainly its sale of water to third parties was known to and endorsed by the Richmond Commission, and did not attract any intervention by the Attorney General. The SDWC's doubts did not survive its takeover of the SWC: in 1886 it was noted that "Besides the population of Manchester, that of Salford and of twenty-seven townships beyond the limits of the city rely wholly on the city works. In addition, the Corporation supply in bulk the whole of the water distributed to eleven townships by the North Cheshire Water Company, and to two townships by the Tyldesley Local Board, and also afford a partial supply to the Stockport District Waterworks Company and the Hyde Corporation, who together supply twenty-eight townships" and Manchester sought to increase such sales because they were profitable. Manchester could easily get more (and of superior quality) from wells tapping the New Red Sandstone aquifer; if they were still unsatisfied there were vast untouched collecting grounds in the moorlands of Lancashire. There was also a more general point; the Thirlmere scheme, if approved, would set a precedent for municipalities to buy up whole valleys in the Lake District, leaving them at the mercy of "bodies of men, skilful and diligent enough in managing local affairs, but having little capacity to appreciate the importance of subjects beyond their daily sphere of action" Normally, private bills were not opposed at Second Reading; their success or failure was determined by the committee stage which followed. However, when the Second Reading of the Thirlmere Bill was moved, Howard spoke against it, and was supported by William Lowther, MP for Westmorland. Two Manchester MPs spoke for the bill, as did the MP for Cockermouth, Isaac Fletcher, a West Cumberland mine-owner and industrialist.
Committee stage
thumb|Lyon Playfair, chairman of the committee
The bill was considered by a committee chaired by Lyon Playfair: