Langsett Reservoir
The following pictures were shot around Langsett Reservoir, in a somewhat bleaker moorland. Colour in these views would have been better a little later in the year: then the heather would have been in flower and the bracken would have been up and burgeoning instead of lying about as dead and flattened white stalks. Rough grass, unsuitable for grazing, and bilberry shrubs are common hereabout and can be seen. Poor rainfall through the previous winter produced the low water level evident in the photos.
Tributary streams running into the reservoir (above and below).
The ruins in the following pictures are the remains (funnily enough) of North America Farm. The reservoir was built in the 19th Century and a number of farms above it were abandoned shortly thereafter: at a time when there was no chemical purification for water supplies, there were concerns about polluting run-off from animal farming. During WWII the dereliction was completed by tanks using the farm for target practice.
The distant wind turbines seen in the pictures below are situated to the north of the reservoir, at Royd Moor (a royd is an enclosed clearing in Old English, a similar meaning to the suffix -ley, which also occurs in many English place names (Boothroyd might well denote a dwelling within a clearing, Beverley might well denote a clearing where beavers were common wildlife).
I don't think windfarms will be our salvation, but I applaud the attempt. Despite the commonly found NIMBY-ism (usually from incomers retiring to the country from urban surroundings), complaining of wind farms being a visual blight, I actually find them quite sculptural.
The taller structure to the right of the turbines in the last image is the Emley Moor television transmission mast, the tallest free-standing structure in the UK.
Part of Roaming South Yorkshire.