The King George VI Reservoir sits between Stanwell Moor and Staines upon Thames, south-west of

Heathrow Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others bei ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is between

Staines Moor Staines Moor is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest north of Staines-upon-Thames in Surrey. It is part of the South West London Waterbodies Ramsar site and a Special Protection Area Description Staines Moor consists of alluvial f ...

and a north–south road abutting the Staines Reservoirs. The

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

was opened in November 1947 and named after the then reigning monarch

George VI George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death in 1952. He was also the last Emperor of I ...

. It is owned by

Thames Water Thames Water Utilities Ltd, known as Thames Water, is a large private utility company responsible for the public water supply and waste water treatment in most of Greater London, Luton, the Thames Valley, Surrey, Gloucestershire, north Wiltsh ...

Construction and statistics

It occupies and holds 3,493 million

gallon The gallon is a unit of volume in imperial units and United States customary units. Three different versions are in current use: *the imperial gallon (imp gal), defined as , which is or was used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Austr ...

s (15,880,000 m³) or, per ''The Times'', 4,466 million gallons. The top of its banks are above the surrounds. The enclosing bank crest measures 5.23 km. Like its Lower Thames siblings, it is of

earthen dam An embankment dam is a large artificial dam. It is typically created by the placement and compaction of a complex semi-plastic mound of various compositions of soil or rock. It has a semi-pervious waterproof natural covering for its surface an ...

build: a puddled clay lining and embankments from materials excavated on site, particularly ballast (heavier aggregates). It has been built-up from dry land as the eastern

Thames Basin The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

lacked sufficiently watered, largely unpopulated, agriculturally unprized vales to be dammed near to which conveniently coal-supplied treatment works and pipes to London could be built. A tendered bid for the work – at £1,292,000, – was accepted in July 1937. The contractor was John Mowlem and Co. Limited.

World War II use when empty

The reservoir was completed in 1939 but was left empty due to the outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. It is reputed that a mock Clapham Junction railway station was built inside to confuse the

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

. The reservoir was used for fog dispersal experiments for an aircraft landing in fog or smog technique, FIDO. It was formally opened by King George VI on 7 November 1947.

Local economic history

The land purchase was likely connected with gravel extraction locally. Four such firms were digging for aggregates in Stanwell in 1956, employing nearly 100 people.Reynolds, Susan (1962). 'Stanwell: Economic and social history', in A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3 pp. 43-45. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol3/pp43-45

Operation, sheep and notable birds

This and the Staines Reservoirs, built 1902, receive their input from the

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

Hythe End Wraysbury is a village and civil parish in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in England. It is under the western approach path of London Heathrow airport. It is located on the east bank of the River Thames, roughly midway between Win ...

Wraysbury Wraysbury is a village and civil parish in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in England. It is under the western approach path of London Heathrow airport. It is located on the east bank of the River Thames, roughly midway between Winds ...

above Bell Weir Lock and the mouth of the

Colne Brook The Colne Brook is a river in England that is a distributary of the River Colne which runs from Uxbridge Moor, there forming the western border of Greater London, to the River Thames just below Bell Weir Lock in Hythe End, Wraysbury, Berkshire. ...

. The reservoir's inlet valve tower is south, north of a pumping station; the outlet one is east, being gravity-fed. Input and output are to and from the Staines Reservoirs Aqueduct, feeding the Water Treatment Works at Kempton Park and another at

Hampton Hampton may refer to: Places Australia *Hampton bioregion, an IBRA biogeographic region in Western Australia *Hampton, New South Wales *Hampton, Queensland, a town in the Toowoomba Region * Hampton, Victoria Canada * Hampton, New Brunswick *Ha ...

. To ease inspection of banks, a flock of sheep is kept on them which keeps them close-cropped. It is part of the

Site of Special Scientific Interest. The reservoirs carry (are habitats for) nationally large wintering populations of

tufted duck The tufted duck or tufted pochard (''Aythya fuligula'') is a small diving duck with a population of close to one million birds, found in northern Eurasia. The scientific name is derived from Ancient Greek '' aithuia'', an unidentified seabird ment ...

s, pochard,

goosander The common merganser (North American) or goosander (Eurasian) (''Mergus merganser'') is a large seaduck of rivers and lakes in forested areas of Europe, Asia, and North America. The common merganser eats mainly fish. It nests in holes in trees. ...

and

goldeneye ''GoldenEye'' is a 1995 spy film, the seventeenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Directed by Martin Campbell, it was the first in the se ...

References

External links

Surrey County Council map
{{authority control Reservoirs in Surrey Thames Water reservoirs Drinking water reservoirs in England