Paul Steane's Photography Pages

The Thirlmere Aqueduct is a 96-mile long water supply system built by the Manchester Corporation Water Works between 1890 and 1925. The aqueduct was built to carry approximately 55,000,000 imperial gallons per day of water from Thirlmere Reservoir in the Lake District to Manchester.
The majority of the aqueduct was built by cut-and-cover and so is only just below ground level. To ensure continuous access by maintenance staff, in most places where the route crossed a road or field boundary, a gate was built. A majority of these have a characteristic construction with stone stoops and iron gate, with spiked staves.
There are also a large number of valve houses, each usually built of stone and often with a green painted door.
The MCWW TA (as displayed on pretty much every piece of hardware) also has some interesting engineering structures on the route, a few of which are pictured here.