Gaddings Dam West is one of a pair of early 19^th Century industrial reservoirs high on Langfield Common, above the Pennine town of Todmorden in West Yorkshire.  Dating from the reign of William IV (1830-37), The Dams were built originally to supply water to local industry, and to the Rochdale Canal in the valley bottom below.  From the records that survive, it seems that Gaddings Dam East, which is now empty and abandoned, was the earlier of the two, and was probably built by the Rochdale Canal Company.  Gaddings Dam West, which survives, was built by the Fieldens, a wealthy family of local mill owners, and was completed by 1835 (to find out more about the history of the Dam, visit our History of the Dam page).

Gaddings Dam West is approximately four acres in size, and contains some 100,000 cubic metres of water.  The Dam has been emptied in the past, but by the 1960s was full again, and has remained so ever since.  The Dam shares a wall to the East with the abandoned Gaddings Dam East, and in its major, West wall has a culvert that leads to the remains of an inoperative valve system.  In its North East corner the Dam has a prominent sandy beach, said to be the highest beach in England.  It seems the sand is probably naturally occurring (sand stone, or millstone grit, dominates the local geology), although one theory is that the sand was a by-product of dressing the stones for the Dam’s wall on site.  There are no roads to the Dam, and the only practical access is up a steep footpath from the village of Lumbutts below.

In the 1970s the Dam was purchased by Mr John Slater, who lived locally, and who had already bought and preserved the nearby Lee Dam.   By the 1990s, John Slater had retired and moved to Spain, and during the exceptionally wet winter of 1999 to 2000, an official from North West Water passed the Dam whilst on other business, and noticed that the water levels were dangerously high. He reported this to Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council, the Statutory Authority then responsible for administering the Reservoirs Act.

The Reservoirs Act applies to all reservoirs with a capacity of 25,000 cubic metres or more, a definition which comfortably applies to Gaddings Dam, with its 100,000 cubic metre capacity.  Using their powers under the Act, the Council appointed an All Reservoirs Panel Engineer to carry out a statutory inspection of the Dam as an ‘Inspecting Engineer’ (under the Act, all reservoir owners are supposed to appoint an Inspecting Engineer once every ten years, something that had not happened with Gaddings).

In his report, the engineer outlined a challenging programme of repair required to bring the Dam into legal compliance, and concluded reluctantly that draining and abandoning the Reservoir might be one option to explore.  The then owner was not in a position to guarantee that this work would be undertaken, and the general consensus was that the Dam’s future was limited. 

The Gaddings Dam Preservation Company Limited

During the spring of 2001 a local enthusiast, Mr Jolyon Trimingham, formed a pressure group to campaign to save the Dam.  The group approached the owner, who promised to sell the Dam to us at a preferential price of £1,500 provided it was preserved for the people of Todmorden.  The group met on a weekly basis, deciding initially to constitute as an Unincorporated Association, and finally agreeing to form a Not-for-Profit company,

The Gaddings Dam Preservation Company Limited, which was registered in November 2001, had the following Directors and elected officials:

Ruth Challis  

Tim Challis (Chair)

Arthur Easter (Company Secretary)   

John Griffiths

Margaret Griffiths

Jackie Kershaw

John Newby

Maria Prescott

*John Rebecchi

*Sue Rebecchi (Treasurer)

*Jolyon Trimmingham (Vice Chair)

(* no longer members of the Company)

The Company Objects and Articles were designed, and the Company registered, by the Industrial Common Ownership Movement (ICOM) Ltd in Leeds, the cost of this being met by the Company’s directors personally. 

The Company’s objectives are:

1. To raise funds to purchase and preserve Gaddings Dam West in perpetuity as a heritage and environmental amenity for the general public; and

2. To work with the public, private and voluntary sectors to preserve the unique nature of the Dam.

The Company’s first full calendar year of operation was 2002, and the priority was to raise the money needed to purchase and insure the Dam.  A letter seeking support from the public was distributed to all signatories of earlier petitions, and to local companies and organisations. 

Collectively, individual members of the public donated £1,600 to the cost of purchasing and maintaining the Dam.  Todmorden Town Council also donated £500 at the end of 2001, and a number of local companies gave smaller contributions.  As the summer of 2002 approached, Gordon Rigg’s Garden Centre in Todmorden donated £1,000, with the owner Peter Rigg presenting the cheque personally at the Company’s stand at the Todmorden Agricultural Show in June.