Reservoir Blog

We have received permission for a minor amendment to our planning permission. Also we have been granted a wayleaf for the electrical supply. Small steps, but they all count. 

Great meeting with Brendan to pin down some detail,next move out to tender!

I met the wonderful Richard of Western Power in site. We now embark on the road to having three phase electricity. On site, there used to be a constant water connection; it was a Reservoir after all. That connection has now been turned off. So, once the electricity is underway, we need to secure a conventional water connection. Jason Taylor of Severn Trent arranged for the water connection to be done at the same time as the electricity. Then the lockdown got in the way, and we are still waiting for electricity in June.   

The images show the glass and timber extension to the rear of the existing concrete structure.  View from the rear, facing the woods The front will look much as it has since 1943

The Old Reservoir, as we will call it, just outside Old Dalby began life in 1943 as a water storage tank. I am pretty sure that, in the wartime, it would only have been built for military purposes. The military presence near Old Dalby was the Central Ordnance Depot, Old Dalby , built in 1940 under the oversight of my father, Major-General 'Bill' Williams, then Director of Warlike Stores in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. The Old Dalby depot was conceived as a motor transport depot as an offshoot of the Army Centre for Mechanisation at Chilwell, just north of nearby Nottingham. Before it could fulfil this function it was altered into a depot for heavy guns, machine tools and large equipment such as Bailey Bridges. It was commanded by Brigadier Bob Hiam, who joined the RAOC from Dunlops for the duration of the war. Hiam would cross the channel just after D Day to set up an Advance Ordnance Depot just outside Caen, which then moved, following the advance, to Antwerp. The Ol...