Angram Dam in miniature, Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire.

Most of the structures featured in these pages decorate vast estates or landscapes, or at least substantial gardens. But the sculpture pictured here is something a little different – it started life as a project for men building a reservoir, and later spent many years ornamenting a quiet garden in a Yorkshire village. It is a scale model of the dam and valve tower at Angram Reservoir, north of Pateley Bridge in the old West Riding of Yorkshire, and was built by two of the masons who worked on the construction of the reservoir.

Angram was one of a string of reservoirs built in remote spots along the course of the river Nidd in the early years of the twentieth century. The water was to supply the prosperous city of Bradford: by constructing the reservoirs on high ground, gravity would allow the water to flow to the treatment works on the edge of the city without the need of pumps.

The model was made by the father and son team of Robert Drummond (1844-1920) and his son Duncan (1883-1942) whenever they had some spare time. The 1911 census shows that both men lived with their wives and families on site at Angram, in the specially-constructed ‘temporary village’ for workers constructing the reservoir and massive stone dam.

Although there was a reading and recreation room on site, there must have been little to do in such a ‘wild, solitary spot’, and construction of the scale replica kept the men busy when not at work.

The model was first erected on land near where the Drummonds lived in the temporary housing shown in the background of the photograph above (which the workers christened ‘Angram Terrace’). According to the date stone it was completed in 1913, although the tower on the actual dam carries the date 1916.

The village was cleared when work on the reservoir was complete. The model was then moved to stand outside Bradford Corporation’s Water Works at Chellow Heights, but was threatened with destruction when the works were modernised in the 1970s. It was rescued by the Drummond family and moved to the garden of one of the family in East Morton, near Keighley in West Yorkshire.

There it remained for many years until the house was to be sold, and a new home for the model was required. Robert and Duncan Drummond’s descendants approached the Nidderdale Museum, in Pateley Bridge, to ask if they might find some space to display it: the museum is the perfect home as it already tells the history of the building of the reservoirs. With financial support from Yorkshire Water, the model was restored by monumental masons H.A. Green of Ripon, and moved to stand outside the museum. In summer 2023 the Lord Mayor of Bradford, performed the ceremony to welcome what is now known as the Angram Monument to Pateley Bridge.

In 1921 work began to construct Scar House, an even larger reservoir further down the valley (where Duncan Drummond was also employed). The Chairman of Bradford Council’s Waterworks Committee was Lt Colonel Anthony Gadie, and not everyone supported his decision to invest so much money in the reservoirs. Scar House Reservoir became known as Gadie’s Folly, but Bradford’s naysayers were forced to eat (or rather drink) their words when the city had ample water in periods of drought later in the century. The reservoirs continue to serve the people of Bradford and district today.

There is a circular walk to Angram and Scar Top reservoirs from the Yorkshire Water car park near the village of Lofthouse.

Visit the Nidderdale Museum in Pateley Bridge to learn about the construction of the reservoirs (and much more).

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