Rake Brook Reservoir is a

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 ...

fed by two streams, including the

eponymous An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Usage of the word The term ''epon ...

Rake Brook, a tributary of the

River Roddlesworth The River Roddlesworth (also known as Rocky Brook) is a river in Lancashire, England, a tributary of the River Darwen. Course The source of the river is on the slopes of Great Hill, just above the ruins known as ''Pimm's'', where the infant rive ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...

, England. The reservoir is adjacent to the two Roddlesworth Reservoirs. It was constructed in the 1850s by Thomas Hawksley for Liverpool Corporation Waterworks, and was designed to hold compensation water to maintain flows in the rivers, whereas the reservoirs at Lower Rivington, Upper Rivington and

Anglezarke Anglezarke is a sparsely populated civil parish in the Borough of Chorley in Lancashire, England. It is an agricultural area used for sheep farming, also site of reservoirs that were built to supply water to Liverpool. The area has a large expanse ...

held water for the public water supply. Water from the reservoir was fed into Anglezarke reservoir by a channel called

The Goit The Goit (sometimes written ''The Goyt'') (see Oxford English Dictionary - Gote - a watercourse; any channel for water; a stream. Chiefly northern dialect.) is a canal used for transporting drinking water along the Rivington chain in Lancashire, ...

. Construction of the reservoir was authorised by an

Act of Parliament Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the Legislature, legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of ...

obtained in 1847, and the engineer

Thomas Hawksley Thomas Hawksley ( – ) was an English civil engineer of the 19th century, particularly associated with early water supply and coal gas engineering projects. Hawksley was, with John Frederick Bateman, the leading British water engineer of the ...

designed an earth dam which was tall at its highest point and long. The reservoir was finished in 1857, and impounded of water when full.

Bibliography

References

West Pennine Moors Reservoirs in Lancashire Geography of Chorley {{Lancashire-geo-stub