Holmfirth Floods

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On 5 February 1852, the Bilberry Dam broke at Holme Village near Holmfirth in England (Yorkshire ) and caused the " Holmfirth Flood". There were at least 80 dead.

The construction of the dam

The construction of the dam began in 1840, to drive the waterwheels of the mills in the Holme Valley. The planning engineer was Mr. George Leather, Civil Engineer ( Civil ), and were carried out the construction work of Messrs. Sharp and Sons Dewsbury for £ 9,324. The contract, however, was withdrawn from this company and continued by Messrs. David Peter and Brothers until 1848.

The dam had a storage capacity of 300,000 m³. The dam was situated in a narrow gorge behind a pool, which was fed by two rivers. The grassy embankment of earth and stones had a height of 67 feet (20 m ) and a length of 300 feet (90 m). He had a vertical sealing layer in the middle, the top 8 feet ( 2.4 m) and below 16 feet (4.8 m) was broad.

As a spillway in the dam stood a circular tower of 4.5 m diameter, the overflowing water should dissipate through a tunnel. The dam sat down later, so that the dam crest in the center was lower than the flood overflow that this was useless. In the tower there were also two shutters which could be operated with slides from above.

During construction, we came across an arm-thick source. The ground was dug deeper here, to seal the place. In operation, the dam still later was very leaky, so that the water mills could be partly operated by leachate alone. The engineer later claimed in court that he knew nothing of the source. The cause of the dam failure, however, was overflow.

The disaster

The dam was destroyed in a flood after days of heavy rains. It should have 2 inches ( 50 mm) of rain in 24 hours. On the night before breaking one of the two closures in repair and the other was blocked with stones and boulders. The water level could not be lowered. As a result, the dam was washed over by waves and wind until it broke.

The water took 20 minutes to three miles ( 5 km) to cover after Holmfirth. The Holme Valley great damage was done. The number of deaths is given as 80, 81 or 84 and there were many homeless people. The reservoir had run out in 30 minutes.

Today there is anything further below the 1954 -built Digley reservoir.