Self-Activating Sluice And Regulating House, Waulkmill Glen Reservoir Including Draw-Off Tower

This exceptionally well-preserved complex, dating to circa 1847-8 and the work of engineer William Gale, comprises a reservoir with an earth embankment, a draw-off tower, a self-activating sluice house, regulating basins, and a regulating house.

The reservoir's roughly L-shaped main embankment dam is 200 yards long, 60 feet high, and 12 feet wide at the top. It has pitched earth walls strengthened with stone and sealed with puddle clay, with a 1 in 3 slope to the front and a 1 in 2 slope to the rear. A concrete-lined byewash section runs within the embankment to provide an overflow. A plain girder track bridge with a central bull-faced masonry pier and 21st-century replica cast-iron railings with flower detail crosses the byewash.

The draw-off tower is built on an octagonal bull-faced masonry base, incorporating long slit openings, with a sandstone ashlar valve house above, featuring round-arched windows on each elevation separated by plain pilasters. It is topped with a shallow octagonal piended roof of stone slates and a cast-iron finial. A rectangular-headed doorway on the north-northwest elevation is flanked by a deep corbel that supports a later iron footbridge.

The self-activating sluice house and associated regulating basins are set into the land-side of the embankment, immediately north of the valve tower. The sluice house presents a distinctive 3-arch arcaded frontage with flanking piers, constructed from rusticated red sandstone ashlar with pronounced, quirky vermiculation. It has a plain polished ashlar cornice and parapet, with iron gates to the arches. Two rectangular regulating basins are located immediately north of the sluice house, now with 20th-century covers. The interior of the sluice house features a triple vault supported by a central buttress and two cast-iron columns.

The regulating house is a single-storey, octagonal building with a round-arched doorway and stone-mullioned tripartite windows. It is constructed from rusticated sandstone ashlar with pronounced quirky vermiculation and polished ashlar dressings. It has a base course, an eaves band, projecting stone eaves, an entrance with a roll-moulded margin and pronounced voussoirs, and tripartite windows with projecting cills to alternate elevations. It is capped with a shallow piended roof and a squat stone finial.