Colganology2: Village of the Drowned

I've just finished reading David Bramwell's excellent published essay The Cult of Water. David is a friend and one of my favourite writers. He seamlessly weaves history, folklore and popular culture together in a fascinating and entertaining way; he has the gift of being a natural storyteller.

The book explores both his and Humankind's relationship with water. Water is one of the elemental spirits. It's the bringer of life and death. It's made civilisations and destroyed them. Rivers and oceans and lakes have been worshipped as deities. There's even a fascinating discussion to be had about how the natural feminine power of water has been overthrown by the masculinity of fire - Mother Nature crushed by the iron hammer of Vulcan and heavy industry. Where once waterwheels used the power of the land to create clean green energy, now there's the burning of fossil fuels.

It's a lovely read and it includes interviews and references to all kinds of fascinating people from Alan Moore to Jarvis Cocker. I was particularly taken by David's childhood memories of visiting Ladybower Reservoir in the Peak District during the summer drought of 1976 and how he saw the remains of a lost church emerging from the waters.

Residents of the villages of Derwent and Ashopton in Derbyshire were ordered to abandoned their homes in the 1940s, so the site could be purposely flooded to create the reservoir. The proposals were strongly opposed by residents at the time, but the government insisted that it was necessary to serve the growing local cities of Derby, Sheffield, Nottingham and Leicester. Both villages were demolished except for Derwent Church and, for a few years, all that remained to show that the villages had ever existed was the spire rising above the waters. But then, in 1949, that too was knocked down for safety reasons.

The reservoir was famously used by Barnes-Wallace to test his 'bouncing bombs' before the Dambuster raids on Germany in 1943.

During the recent 2022 drought, the reservoir's waters dropped to some of the lowest levels ever recorded and the remains of the village became visible once again. Many people risked life and limb in the treacherous sticky mud to visit the site where they found the remains of the church that David saw as a child, the old Derwent manor house and many cottages.

Photos: Anthony Devlin

This story reminded me of my own childhood and visits to Drift Dam and reservoir near Penzance for family walks on a Sunday. Dad always used to claim that there were farms and a small village under the waters. Sadly, however, by the time the 1976 drought came along, we'd moved to Helston so I never got to see any proof.

But this year he was finally vindicated. The exceptionally low water levels revealed the remains of the tiny hamlet of Nanquitho and a substantial farm called Trewidden Vean.