KIELDER Reservoir is celebrating 38 years since it first opened.
The man-made creation was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip on May 26, 1982, in front of crowds of local residents, workers and schoolchildren.
Kielder Reservoir, also known as Kielder Water, is Northern Europe’s largest man-made lake surrounded by Kielder Forest, the biggest man-made woodland in Europe.
The £167m scheme to build the reservoir was planned in the late 1960s to satisfy an expected rise in demand for water to support a booming UK industrial economy.
Work to build the reservoir and dam, which is capable of holding 44,000m gallons of water, started at the hamlet of Yarrow in 1975.
Today, the reservoir is the centre piece for the annual Kielder Marathon which takes place every October.
The award-winning writer and local historian David Almond recently talked about the flooding of Northumberland's Kielder Valley, including the Plashetts village, to make a dam, and the music and poetry connected to the local area. It can be found at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hmxn
A film sponsored by Northumbrian Water, and created by Turners Film and Video records the Kielder reservoir construction project in all its stages, from mapping the area by plane to the final impounding. It can be accessed here: http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/kielder-water-1968-1982
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