Lower Rivington Reservoir

Lower Rivington Reservoir is the last in a chain of reservoirs that were built to supply Liverpool, though I think now supply Wigan. They start with the Roddlesworth Reservoirs, which feed into Anglezarke, via the Goit, which leads to the Upper Rivington Reservoir, and so to the Lower.

We started from the Crown Hotel, in Horwich, which is just below the damn.


The A673, the Bolton Road, takes us past the entrance to Lever Park.


And then along the southwest side of the reservoir.


Looking the other way, the town of Blackrod can be see on the hilltop, with St Katherine's Church at the very top.

The road departs from the reservoir. On this side, there is no way to walk along the reservoir unfortunately, so we follow the road. There is an Italian restaurant, Luciano's at the Millstone, formerly a pub the Mill Stone Inn, which was there in 1824.


We turn right here, and go a short distance along Rivington Lane - previously Pitcher Poke Lane. At the end is a "headless cross". The head apparently is in the Harris Museum in Preston.


It is then a bit of a walk along Roscoe Lowe Brow, which becomes New Road, then turn right down Horrobin Lane, which runs across the causeway between the upper and lower reservoirs.


The view looking down the lower reservoir.


And up the other one.


We turn off Horrobin Lane before getting to Rivington itself, past a school. On this side you can walk along the reservoir.



Looking the other way, you can see Winter Hill and Rivington Pike Tower.


Eventually we reach Liverpool Castle. There was an actual Liverpool Castle in Liverpool; this one is a scale reproduction that was commissioned by Lord Leverhulme. It was designed to look like the castle had done after the civil war, so in a ruined state, but construction ended when Lord Leverhulme died, so it is in a even more incomplete state.



From the castle we had to head southeast, then south, towards Dryfield Lane. We crossed the Douglas Diversion. I presume this was created to direct the River Douglas into the reservoir.


Dryfield Lane takes us past the overflow for the reservoir - not easy to see.


And then the water treatment plant, which has the job of treating all that water from the five reservoirs. As it ends the story of the reservoirs, that seems a good point to end this.

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