Construction of Bewl Water Reservoir began in 1973 and was complete in 1974. It was three years until the reservoir was full for the first time.  Several historic buildings were located within the River Bewl Valley. Whilst the 920 meter long dam was being built three of the buildings were moved and reconstructed including Tindall’s Cottage and Ketley Cottage.

The reservoir is not fed by the Bewl River alone as the river’s catchment area is not sufficient to fill it. Two additional pipelines feed in, extending the catchment area to 400 square miles. Bewl Water also feeds nearby Darwell Reservoir, ensuring that Hastings and the surrounding area has water during droughts.

Here are some facts that I thought were quite staggering (source):

At maximum capacity Bewl Water holds the equivalent of 1 gallon of water for each person living on Earth (6.9 Billion gallons). That is a lot of water.

The River Thames takes 132 hours to discharge the same amount of water into the North Sea.

The River Amazon takes 2.5 minutes to discharge the same amount of water into the Atlantic.

As big as Bewl Water is though, it can run low during dry periods. The ever paranoid Daily Mail ran a report on this in 2012. For a frightening insight into the thoughts of some Daily Mail readers, the comments section of that article is worth a read especially those highest rated.

These pictures can be viewed full scale by clicking on them. You’ll be redirected to my Panoramio page.