Firsby Reservoirs
See also The Vincents' of Braithwell and Firsby
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If you are looking for a quiet and peaceful retreat away from the crowds, Firsby Reservoirs may be just the place.
A perfect afternoon could be a gentle stroll around the resevoirs admiring the countryside or a quiet picnic while watching the birds and enjoying the flowers.
Firsby Reservoirs are situated approxmately 4 miles north east of Rotherham. The site can be approached by road from Ravenfield along Garden Lane and Arbour Lane. There is a small car park. The site can also be reached by public footpath from surrounding villages and Thrybergh Country Park.
History
14th Century Court Roll from Firsby
Thomas Westby lived at Firsby
See also The Vincents' of Braithwell and Firsby
Firsby Resevoirs consist of two areas of water created in the 1870s by the Doncaster Corporation to act as a holding resevoir for the then new resevoir at Thrybergh.
They are connected to Thrybergh by two conduits and a sluice gate for one of these can still be seen at the corner of the smaller lake. In 1980 Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council acquired both Thrybergh and Firsby Reservoirs for a nominal sum from Yorkshire Water Authority. Thrybergh Reservoir has been developed by the council as a Country Park. The firsby Resevoirs are managed primarily as a haven for wildlife.
A Gentle Stroll
The site can easily be explored in a few hours, there are small benches on route.
The following extract describes the area:
Hidden away down a long, single track lane, Firsby Reservoirs lie in a secluded valley bottom, little known by many, loved by those who have discovered them. No longer used for public water supply, too small by current standards, they are now owned by Rotherham Council and managed as a local nature reserve.
Much of the open water is carpeted with rafts of pink, the flower spikes of amphibious bistort, great carpets of it stretching away to the willow carr at the far end.
This summer's unseasonal rainfall means that the shallow margins are well up the bank and stands of willowherb and meadowsweet, bedraggled by the downpours, sit offshore rather than onshore.
Ripples and eddies ruffle the otherwise calm surface as half a dozen carp, big beasts more than 15 inches long, nose their way into the shallows, stirring up silt and their invertebrate food with it, gliding, twisting, rolling over, big dorsal fins breaking through.
Tiny fish fry dart panic-stricken in their thousands before them. A solitary roach leaps briefly out of the water.
We tend to know little of what lives beneath the surface in water bodies and courses. The birds, dragonflies and plants above are easily recorded, but the underwater world is more of a mystery, except, perhaps, to anglers and the great crested grebes.
Round the back of the reserve the hedge is bedecked with honeysuckle, the long white trumpet-like flowers spread like crow's feet from the centre.
Behind them, rosebay willowherb pushes its flowering purple pyramids above the bramble and honeysuckle.
A perfect combination for elephant hawk moths, night-scented flowers with nectar for the adults, willowherb foodplant for the caterpillars.
In seconds, our excursion is shattered by another cloud burst from a rapidly darkening sky. Huge spots of rain shatter the water's surface, churning the water with mini spouts, bubbles forming to be quickly burst by the next raindrop.
It comes down in sheets, pounding, soaking everything which is not already wet.
The carp, roach and grebes are unfazed. We, on the other hand, are drenched as the weather reveals that our waterproofs, are, in fact, not.
Source: Pete Bowler, The Guardian, August 14, 2004
©2004