The Cats of Charnwood Forest
LOCATIONS
By Constantine
CHARACTERS
Black Brook Reservoir, was first built in 1796 to supply water to the Charnwood Canal. (Which itself only lasted a few years as the invention of the steam train made it obsolite.) The first Dam failed in 1799. The Nottingham Mercury reported that:
On Tuesday last, a most unfortunate and distressing circumstance occurred on the Foreft line of the Leicester Canal, near Sheepshead. consequence of the thaw, the water swelled so rapidly in the Reservoir, to occasion the middle part of the head, for about thirty yards, the aqueduct and large embankment, to give way; - The violence of the water carried away the whole of Chester's house and premises, a small house near Black Brook, several stacks of hay and corn, and about 50 head of sheep. The fences and roads are torn up, and the land injured to an extent of near six miles. Happily no lives were lost.
The damn was repaired and eventually replaced with a "Gravity Dam". During the second world war, the famous "Dam Busters" used blackbrook reservoir to practise and test the equipment they would use so sucessfully against the Nazis.
In Febuary 1957 the Thringstone Fault generated an series of eathquakes the geeatest of which registered 5.2. and was felt all over the Midlands. In April 1957 The Birmingham Daily Post reported.
In Febuary 1957 the Thringstone Fault generated an series of eathquakes the geeatest of which registered 5.2. and was felt all over the Midlands. In April 1957 The Birmingham Daily Post reported.
A SURVEY of Blackbrook Reservoir, Loughborough, has shown that coping stones weighing three-quarters of a ton were moved out of position by the earth tremors in February.
There seems to have been a press blackout on using the word "earthquake." Perhaps for fear it would affect property values. Shortly after the quakes on the 14th of Febuary 1957 The Leicester Evening Mail ran the following aricle
.What goes on deep under Charnwood? MAYBE THE GIANT IS THE IS EASING ITS JOINTS AFTER 500'000'000 YEARS: The seemingly tranquil Charnwood forest, Leicestershire's most serene landscape, is being provisionally blamed by geologists for the two earth tremors that have shaken the Midlands. The concentration of the main damage from the minor earthquakes in the Leicester, Nottingham and Derby area, coupled with the complex structure of the rocks below Charnwood, tend to support the theory that the ancient outcrop, the rough jewels of the county scene, are having trouble with their setting. Not that there is really any muse for alarm. The one reassuring feature of an otherwise disquieting situation is the calmness with which the experts have accepted the playful geophysical frolics of Mother Earth.
