Thirlmere Reservoir & Aqueduct : John Butcher

A reservoir holding 8 billion gallons of water together with a 95 mile long aqueduct consisting of tunnels, pipes and water courses, transporting up to 50 million gallons of water daily between Thirlmere and Manchester.

John retired from United Utilities in 2017 after a 30-year long career working with the Lake District’s regional water supply systems together with the other major aqueduct systems in the Northwest of the UK. Since then John has been a consultant helping out with major water supply projects both in the UK and overseas. However, his favourite still to this day is the Thirlmere reservoir and aqueduct. John will share his passion for this wonder of Victorian engineering and take us through the history and building of the Thirlmere reservoir and why today it is considered to be the birth of environmentalism in the UK. He will then take us on a tour of the 95 mile-long aqueduct which delivers the waters of Thirlmere to Lancashire and Manchester under gravity alone.