Couvre Porte Reservoir, Brompton
This was only my second day of being back on the scene, and I was finding all kinds of sites that I had never heard of before. And Iv'e lived in Medway for almost 25 years!
I stumbled on this huge reservoir while checking out the Brompton area of Chatham with a friend. But had to leave soon after we arrived due to my friend suffering a huge bout of vertigo
I'm fairly pleased with the few pictures I got, but my SLR isnt with me right now. So I only had iPod to take pictures with.
I plan to return soon once I get my SLR back in action, and get alot more pictures at a much better quality.
History
I couldn't dig alot up on this site. But construction of these two concrete leviathan took place sometime between 1897 and 1903 to provide water to Chatham Dockyard. They were emptied and closed in the 80's. My dad has told me stories when he used fish for large perch there and I have also found a newspaper extract about a child that drowned in the reservoir:
Monday, March 17, 1969
Robert Palmer, aged 5 of King's Bastion, Brompton, Gillingham, was drowned yesterday when he fell into a disused reservor. A friend, Christopher Morgan, aged 5 of Singapore Drive, Brompton, who also fell in, was rescued by an army Corporal.
Chilling stuff...
Now for pictures:
We'll start with a map I dug up online of the reservoir from 1943. The blue represents the path the water was guided on its way to the dockyard:
Next we have one of the southern side of the larger reservoir:
This one is of the eastern side:
And the northern side:
This one is the smaller of the two reservoirs, taken facing north:
The barrier separating the two reservoirs:
And finally, a rather nice panoramic of the whole reservoir, facing south:
And a link to a higher resolution panorama: http://i930.photobucket.com/albums/ad141/Fin9ers/UEBABY/Couvre%20Porte%20Reservoir/rsz_chatham-fort_amherst-tunnel-explore_130.jpg
My apologies for the image quality, iPod is not good for taking pictures. I will update as soon as I have new and better pictures
Last edited:
