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Tintwistle - History
Woodhead reservoir was the first to be contructed and work began in August 1848. The picture shows a
small "village" of workers shanties set up in Rhodes Wood called New Yarmouth.
In 1838, construction work had started on the Woodhead rail tunnel. Work here was to become notorious for the poor conditions in which the navvies were forced to live and work. The tunnel was over three miles long and at that time would be the longest tunnel on the British railway system. Much of the work involved blasting through solid rock with gunpowder. Every now and again the discovery of hidden springs would cause flooding which impeded progress. The construction took over six years and at one point employed over 1,500 men. It wasn't until after the tunnel had been built that the true conditions the labourers were forced to work in came to light. 32 workers had been killed, 104 fractures and 140 other serious cases of injury were recorded. Due to the low price of beer for these workers, it is no wonder that drunkenness and alcoholism was common. The housing which was shared by as many as fifteen men at a time consisted of little more than piles of stones with no mortar in between and roofs of thatch or clods of earth.
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Like other villages within Longdendale, Tintwistle grew with the industrial revolution. There were several
mills driven from the small streams which fed the River Etherow and several factories nearby. One of
the biggest changes to the area around Tintwistle and Woodhead was the building of the reservoirs which
were to supply pure water for Manchester.
The work was to take several years before the sites of Bottoms and Valehouse reservoirs were even reached.
Valehouse is pictured on the right taken in 1860. Permission was given in 1865 to start work on Bottoms and
Valehouse reservoirs which were too low to supply water to Manchester but would be used to regulate the flow
of water to the mills further downstream.