You should be looking out over Errwood Reservoir, you might even take a seat on the nearby bench.
Plans for a reservoir in the Goyt Valley had been around for a while but two world wars delayed the immense funding that the project required. Errwood’s slightly larger neighbour, Fernilee Reservoir was completed in 1937, taking five years to build and costing half a million pounds. Errwood was opened in 1968 by the Duchess of Kent and cost three times as much.
This photograph was taken by famous photographer J R Board in 1930. Not a particularly remarkable image but the reservoir is noticeably absent on the right side of the road. How different the valley must have been before it was filled with water. What do you think of the decision to change the natural landscape of Derbyshire to fulfil the needs of a city 18 miles away?
Some of the man made structures in the valley were replaced by the reservoir. The Errwood dam replaced this rather splendid suspension bridge over the river Goyt. In times of drought, some of the old farms, cottages and roads reappear like phantoms from the past.