Stithians Reservoir
Encyclopedia
Stithians Reservoir is a reservoir
Reservoir
A reservoir , artificial lake or dam is used to store water.Reservoirs may be created in river valleys by the construction of a dam or may be built by excavation in the ground or by conventional construction techniques such as brickwork or cast concrete.The term reservoir may also be used to...

 situated just under a mile to the west of the village of Stithians
Stithians
Stithians is a village and civil parish in Cornwall, England, in the United Kingdom. It lies in the centre of the triangle bounded by Redruth, Helston and Falmouth. Its population is 2,004....

, Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.

History

Work on the dam began on 19 July 1962, however work stopped shortly after due to excavations which revealed the site was over over a large area of soft kaolinised granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

, which would require expensive foundations. A new design was drawn up for the dam, which was the current arched design. The dam was opened on 13 October 1967 by Sir John Carew Pole, whilst the Bishop of Truro
Bishop of Truro
The Bishop of Truro is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Truro in the Province of Canterbury.The present diocese covers the county of Cornwall and it is one of the most recently created dioceses of the Church of England...

, Dr Maurice Key blessed the reservoir.

By the opening in 1967 the valley behind the dam was completely flooded, 274 acres of farmland and three country would were now submerged. Two causeway
Causeway
In modern usage, a causeway is a road or railway elevated, usually across a broad body of water or wetland.- Etymology :When first used, the word appeared in a form such as “causey way” making clear its derivation from the earlier form “causey”. This word seems to have come from the same source by...

s were built to carry sections of roads that were flooded, one at the southern end and the other in the north western corner near the Golden Lion Inn.

Statistics

The dam is 41.5 m high and 244m wide. It was built at a total cost of £1,125,000 (about £17 million today) (2009 estimate).
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