Featuring both wet and dry footage of two of the world’s largest plug holes at Ladybower Reservoir, Derbyshire, England. DJI Drone: amzn.to/3vkdGv7 Tiffen Filter: amzn.to/3zg8byX
There’s no way they have a debris grate at the bottom if they don’t have one of the top. There’s no chance they’d risk these getting clogged in a flood scenario. The best way to prevent debris from getting caught is to just lets the force of the water push it out and that’s not possible with a grate in place.
Yeah adding a grate to a discharge on a dam like this is literally just an enormous threat to the dam itself. If the grate plugs the discharge during a flood, the dam overtops and because it's an earthen dam, it quickly destroys itself if it overtops.
Thank god you noticed too! I thought there was some sort of time portal involved. Did you hear any voices as well? I still do. I laugh that an editor thinks people are so unaware or stupid not to notice. Attempted faking a dramatic end, succeeds at classic comedy.
It doesn't make sense to have a metal grate at the bottom of the spillway ductwork. Without a similar one at the top, debris can fall in, but not come out. That would create a maintenance nightmare during high water times when the spillway is in use. They'd have to wait until after it isn't to clean out. That would create a backup and all kinds of problems. It would be better to have a grate at the top entrance and none at the bottom. I'm just speculating, but logic is in my favor unless I'm missing something.
I'm thinking, if the gate is removeable at the bottom it's much easier to remove the gate and let debris flow out. Having it at the top, debris can just pile up and it will take more effort to remove. You'll have to remove it, plus, transport debris away from the hole. On the bottom, you just move the gate and the water will take it away.
I doubt Severn-Trent Water completely lied, they probably have a metal gate at some point to discourage people climbing in from the bottom, though somebody apparently videoed themselves going in according to a comment. As for debris, it would have to cross the step too so wouldn't be large. It's a massive tunnel which flushes itself. The lake is large still water, so non-wood will sink as sediment. When water is flowing, it'll be an extremely wild turbulent rapid flow near the damn from the fall, it must open out then to a pool, slowed before entering a river or floods would cause rapid erosion and downstream damage. Perhaps there's a debris trap that would catch a body around that pool. I used to live in that area, the land around drinking reservoirs is managed, many have walks around them with gentle pasture leading to the lake which fills a hidden glacier cut steep valley. Unfortunately now it's impractical for me to go and have a close look, but Severn-Trent lock off access to their works. In the UK every summer people die from plunging into cold water or going over weirs, as rivers are canalised with managed levels.
Some of these spillways have walkways that allow you to go out and stand above them so you can look straight down. A terrifying experience if you have a fear of water.
Fear of death. Death. Going and standing mid air over the grand canyon does not mean you have a fear of heights. Just a fear of doing things that might kill you for no reason. Being self aware of the danger around you isn't a bad thing.
I know of one large gloryhole or bell mouthed spillway here in New Zealand that allows the public to walk right out over it on a walkway lined with only waist high metal fencing-just mesmerizing and frightening.
If you fell into one of these, you'd go all the way down to the bottom where it angles (could be 60 feet, could be up to 100+ feet) and slam into the bottom concrete with maybe 2-3 feet of water there. You would likely die from the fall impact itself or break some bones and drown in the small amount of moving water at the bottom due to being unable to get back up. Even if you could stand back up physically, if there was a lot of water going over, the force of it beating down on you may keep you from doing so. You may or may not get swept on through the pipe. The area where it spits you out won't be fun, either...it's usually a rocky area on the lower side of the dam and goes right out into the deeper water. The rocks are usually to slow the flow and prevent erosion, of course.
That's fun to imagine that's what would happen but of course we all know that's not true. There isn't any sand involved like you said. It's actually water. But the water isn't moving it's a standing wave that looks like water is going down there. It's an illusion but in reality the hole is moving upwards at one inch per day. That's extremely fast. So fast you can't see it but instead ot makes it look as if water is falling down it. Then you have the problem of the Uncle. The Uncle is what's at the bottom and it handles all the incoming invoices. They built those things down the road so it's sturdy but not sturdy enough to hold a person. This is the set of R, Real numbers. The set a ∈ A is why. b ∉ A so if it isn't an element of this set you have to be wrong on weinis account about hitting the bottom.
@@StandTallTx Here's a visual where a guy walked through a similar one from the bottom and looking up: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ScR1ro6xH48.html Here's someone flying a drone from top all the way through, as well: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4TCWs-QfJV8.html
No metal grid in there to get stuck on at Ladybower, I’ve walked up the overflow tunnel (it’s very long and has a corner in it meaning it’s also very dark!) and stood at the bottom of the plug hole looking up 😊 Took plenty of photos too!
It wouldn't make sense to have the grid on the outlet. If debris made it that far, why trap it at the end to clog up the works? I could see one being on the inlet, particularly if it were used for hydro or something, but not at the end... I think rumor is there to scare people...
5:24 - can you confirm something for me? This is footage in reverse, isn’t it? When looking at the water falling on the right, it looks as though it’s going “up”! Am I right? 😂
When divers repair undersea pipelines it is vital that the pressure inside and outside is matched… if the pressure inside the pipe is accidentally set too low, attempting to spot weld the pipeline results in the diver suddenly disappearing, going through the tiny hole in the pipe he just made, and then there being red-tinted water with some grit mixed in it inside the previously empty pipeline. One of my colleagues used to have that job until that happened to one of his coworkers.
There was an old hydro dam (Blode) near where I grew up. Even though it had been decommissioned for some 50 years water still flowed through the turbine intake. The intake is small enough that a human can't pass through, and the force of the water will prevent you from getting out. There were some five deaths like this before they finally removed the dam.
@John Thomas Yes, Bloede. But not everyone who died at the dam died from getting sucked in to the turbine intake. The spillway made a great water slide followed by a plunge and it was real easy to crack your skull on the way down, or land in a portion of the river that was too shallow, or get held under by the backwash. That's the source of the additional four deaths.
Yeah. Turbine intakes, and water inlets for water supplies, are far more dangerous than spillways, for the reasons given in the video: you have to try quite hard to get over the lip and would be unlikely to do so be accident. Same applies to traditional straight weir tops and plughole shaped spillways. What makes traditional weirs dangerous is that they usually have underwater sluices that, when open, produce suction downwards. Deaths in traditional spillways are usually due to people deliberately using the spillway as a giant water slide. Fun but dangerous for two reasons. Hit your head on the way down and while unconscious you tend to breathe water, which is not the life extending way to consume that liquid. Also where the spillway goes into the waterway at the bottom is often designed as a sheer drop. Like a natural waterfall, a sheer drop of water into water creates a circular motion (called "the washing machine" by lifeguards) that can swirl you round and round under water for longer than you can hold your breath. You can demonstrate the washing machine by throwing a football over a waterfall: often despite the fact that it's far more floaty than a human you can see it going round and round in vertical circles at the bottom before it eventually bobs up.
@@rockets4kids just seen your reply after I posted similar thoughts to you, so I'm acknowledging you got it in first. I don't know that dam, but do know the risks in principle.
There is a reservoir in Costa Rica which has a single large glory hole. One day a boat went out with 10 local dignitaries to have a look at the overflowing glory hole and the boat was sucked in. One person survived and was found a mile away on the bank of river which the overflow pipe discharged into. He was very lucky!
@@nighttime9539 Unfortunatly I do not know the name. My Wife and I were on the small party tour across Costa Rica in the 1990's and we stopped by the side of a large lake, in the distance was an active volcano. Our tour guide, a local man, related this to us being quite moved, as it was horrific. We could see in the middle of the lake water pouring down the glory hole.
He's probably a friend with someone in RU-vid, Google. It's not normal that someone uploads a well made video as their first video and it get's hundreds of thousands of views. This happens way too often.
It does here in the UK too and from what I can deduce, pretty much everywhere else in the English-speaking world... But then I suppose that depends upon how ''worldly' or broadminded one is...
Oh just HELL NO!.. This visual gives me the creeps. Can't stand to look at it. My life long phobia. Hate crossing bridges, seeing large rusty ships, even driving along the Salt Lake at night is terrifying. Weird, huh.
There's nothing unusual at all about using earth to build a dam. This design is the most common dam design in the world. You can use pretty much anything solid and heavy to build a dam and by far the cheapest solid and heavy thing available is the dirt on the ground near the dam site
There's actually an episode on Mr Ballen's channel (mix of true crime and "true" supernatural stories) where he narrates the tale of someone who was sucked into one of these. Having watched this, it seems to refute two of the story's claims i.e. that the swimmer was sucked relentlessly towards the plug hole and couldn't swim away and also that they never recovered the body - the story suggested the water just goes into the earth never to surface again I live near a reservoir and have always wondered about its construction and what would happen if someone fell in, so thank you for helping to solve this puzzle
The person in Mr ballins story swam right up to the edge of the hole while it was overfilled and flowing in, proceeded to hang on the edge for 20 ish minutes than falling.. also the body was not recovered due to the forces it most likely got dealt, ripping the body apart and than jetsoning the pieces into a large river with hundreds of miles..
@@nostoneunturned7641 yes they do lol, these aren’t stories people send in, he searches for these accidents and scenarios, includes real names, images, footage if he can, and if he can’t he’ll try to give you a key term to look up if you so please
There is no metal grate at the exits. shaun_explores on his channel found this out when he sent his drone down the plughole and it lost signal and dropped down. His video shows him climbing down a ladder in to one of the spillways and walking along to the bottom of the shaft and getting his drone back!
I live in Lithuania in a city where we have three lakes in sequence one higher than the other and they are not larger than maybe at most 10 square kilometers area each. They drain into each other trough small maybe 2 meter wide spillways and from the last one in the lowest plains drains into a river that goes to nowhere into some forests. Our city is planned in way that the whole city is built around these lakes and the city slopes down at a moderate angle and at the top of the highest lake is the peaceful side of the city where the apartment building reside and most of the people live there and then in lower regions are the job sites and all the business. So my grandpa told a story where during maybe 1960s there was a huge project to build 12 new 5 story apartment buildings (mind you this was in USSR so it was stalinovkas that were built) right next to the mid lake. The thing is that the concrete spillway tunnel that goes underground is not very deep and it is maybe at 5 meters depth, if that. So the bulldozers were digging trenches for huge complex foundations and they were like 30 meters away from the dam that held off the mid lake and right at the bottom was the burried spillway pipe. They were digging and one of the massive bulldozers hooked onto the pretty small 1.5 meter pipe and snagged it really hard because builders thought it was jus ta giant rock, and that caused the whole underground concrete foundation slab and the elbow to move significantly out of place in the bottom of the lake and it caused the whole maybe 10 stacked rings of concrete to fall sideways and the bottom elbow become exposed like a giant plug hole in the bottom of the giant tub. You can guess what happened next. My grandpa witnessed the entire thing. As soon as the rings fell and disappeared underwater a huge whirlpool formed and the water at the bottom of the jobsite nearby started to squirt like from a huge water mains pipe and the snagged concrete pipe burst and a huge maybe like 5 meter tall 2 meters wide water fountain burst out and the whole lake drained like a bloody tub and emptied in less than 10 minutes. It washed away every truck every bulldozer and every tree and every street and pretty much everything in its way when the flood rushed down the slope to the lowest lake witch was maybe a kilometer away from the mid one. I believe about 20 houses were washed away or damaged in some way but miraculously no people died. When he tells me that story I get goosebumps every time, I wish I could have seen that in real life. The mid lake got a new spillway, the new pipe was constructed much deeper, the apartments were built and now the same lake is again full and now the area is really beautifully done. But everyone who lives in my city knows that story of how the middle lake got drained away like a tub because some idiot snagged the spillway pipe thinking it was a rock.
I had a summer job mowing a long steep bank with a motorised but walk-behind mower. (Suspect the new lad was always given the job.) Anyway, after a few attempts I conquered it by physically bending the struts holding the front wheels to point uphill as you mowed across the face. You could only mow in one direction, but it worked surprisingly well.
Great video! The history about the lost villages under Derwent and Ladybower are brilliant, I went up there a few years back and got some great photos of the ruins when the water was extremely low, I got a picture of my daughter drinking a cup of tea whilst sat on the stone fire surrounded at Derwent Hall, someone had found the stones and re built it. 🤣
The feeling when you put your hand over a plug hole, is not suction from the drain (unless for some bizarre reason you have unvented plumbing). The feeling is actually the hydraulic head, that is the column of water, above your hand.
0:47 - Abominations ? ... They are a beautiful feat of pre-war engineering. As you say, the spillway opening is at the top surface of the water, not below it. With it's very large size, the actual pressure of water at any point at the edge of the spillway is quite low, and not enough to lift you up and over the edge of the mouth. You'll often see light debris caught at the edge of the spillway mouth. It doesn't get 'sucked in', because the water pressure just isn't strong enough.
That was really good. Nice one and best of luck with your channel. By the way, I don’t believe there’s a metal gate at the bottom of that chute. It would get clogged up with bits of wood, weed, rubbish etc. They said that to deter thrill seekers from trying their luck.
I agree, much better if they put a safety handrail around the top so people might have a chance to save themselves; it might catch some debris but as he says, the water doesn't rise very high or flow very fast there.
I live local to these and i can remember a few years back I went out for my usual pleasure drive, stopped for photos and caught them both going at absolutely full capacity.
There is usually a debris catcher at the exit. Two drowned on the Illinois River back in the 1990's when their boat was swept over a dam and they were flushed into the tube but were pressed against the grid. A week or 2 later, while the grid was still removed, a second boat suffered similar prop fouling from a log and then family went over the dam and survived because the grids hadn't been replaced yet from recovering the bodies. Dams are not something to mess with.
Greatly depends on the type of dam. Concrete dams debris catchers like this are very common because they generally use a completely different method of discharge. But with this type of discharge (gloryhole) and this type of dam (mostly earthen) if that discharge gets plugged during a flood, it will destroy the entire dam VERY quickly. There is no debris catcher or grate for this discharge, the BBC guy was wrong.
@@slowboycapital Well, the author of the video also says he was told there was a "metal fence" at the bottom on the dam. That "metal fence" is a debris catcher, just like we have on the Illinois river. My neighbors were told that the deaths of 2 people the previous week was the only reason they survived when their prop was fouled on a log and their boat capsized near the dam launching them all into one of the chutes. The debris catcher had been removed a few days earlier to recover the bodies and hadn't been reinstalled yet. My neighbors didn't like to talk about that incident. They were lucky to have survived.
some poor lady was pulled down the glory hole at Lake Berryessa in the '97. i remember hearing she tried to hold on to the concrete edge for a very long time but was eventually overcome by the current.
There is no suction unless the was experiencing massive flooding, then a whirlpool would be created and the subsequent current would steer you to the center. Under normal spilling the steps slow the water to reduce erosion and vibration. Under low water levels, anyone wanting to experience the overflow tube should enter the spillway tube from the base of the dam above the catchment ponds. Some have steps on the wall. Once in the tube just proceed into the dam, it may make small turns but eventually you will be able to se the sky and some of the steps. The tube walls will be slimy at the base and at an angle. Some friends and I went in the Greenbooth reservoir spillway tube when I was younger. Very exciting experience. I researched the dam design at my local library then just talked up the nerve then did it.
In another video at this reservoir, the video showed the RU-vidr fly a drone over and into that drain when the water was below the drain and had nothing flowing into it so he could get a video of what it looked like from the inside, but the air flow through the drain caused the drone to hit the side and fall to the bottom. He walked around and to the bottom of the dam to the discharge of the drain. There was no grate or gate of any sort at the bottom and he was able to walk right in until he got to where the drone was and recovered it. What is at the bottom is a box shaped pit that is open at the top with a ladder you can climb down and up and then a chute for the water that gets there to flow into the river. I figure the pit is designed to slow down the water flow so it flows into the river much more gently. Good thinking all-in-all.
As someone who grew up around multiple lakes and spent my youth swimming in them......Giant drain holes suddenly forming were the kinds of dreams I had at night........There was a rumor of caves connecting the lakes and some divers disappearing in them.
Unless the reservoir is really flooding and discharging huge amounts of water, it's actually not got a lot of force at the top of the hole. Most of the time when there is water flowing into the hole (a lot of the time water isn't high enough) there isn't a lot of water in any one place. It's probably less than an inch of flowing water, which really isn't forceful enough to suck you in - you'd basically have to fall in or be there during in the middle of a flood. Also there's almost certainly not a grate or fence anywhere along this discharge. The worst possible outcome for a discharge like this is that it gets plugged with debris during a flood. If that happens you can't get down there to unplug it and the dam will overtop and be destroyed entirely. They'd NEVER put a grate it something like this because it just creates an enormous risk to the dam itself. Without a grate, its VERY hard to plug up something this large. Especially during a flood where the sheer volume and force of the water will likely clear any debris out.
A grate at the bottom makes no sense to me. But a grate on the top hole dome shaped or something would at least prevent the deaths and is way harder to clog than one at the bottom. Yeah it’s not much force but still kills people and especially millions of animals, bad design
If they rounded out the bottom so that the alignment curved from vertical to horizontal in a gradual way then this would be perfectly safe to fall down, providing they got rid of the stupid fence at the bottom which is a recipe for drowning. I wish civil engineers would stop building unsafe structures.
Sorry not to reply earlier and thank you for my first ever comment! The bottom is in fact curved and I believe that there is no fence. Check out this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PSnWsGbDoxE.html
yeah sorry, the driving design criteria for these spillways is the level it begins to spill at, flow requirement and the ensure it discharges the water in such a way that the energy of the water doesnt cause erosion. you can spend millions trying to stop idiots hurting themselves, but they will still find a way. this is an 80 year old structure. some personal. responsibility comes into it.
@@korelly problem with fences, they catch debris which then resists the flow of water and can be damaged or obstruct the flow. They also rust. Again, this one was 80 years old and is not spilling all the time. If you decide to swim near an operating spillway after heavy rain events, youre probably not the brightest spark.
The size relative to the volume of the reservist is irrelevant. Its the amount of water entering the reservoir that is relevant to the size of the overflow.
Fantastic video! Pretty amazing to have less than 1k subscribers but get over a million views. Fantastic! You clearly answered the questions that all of us were quietly wondering about, myself included. Your video production was very well done except for the last bit of video where, at the end, you can clearly see the water flowing backwards.
Had the pleasure of talking with a engineer/maintenance person from lady bower, talked about the construction of the dam, he said that the concrete poured at the very bottom of the dam is still “wet” to this day! Not sure if that’s bull or fact!! But he seemed fairly convinced so.
Its simply the most efficient way to move a large volume of water during a flood. The shape of the intake reduces the amount of turbulance introduced into the water which allows the water to flow smoothly into the drain. In fact it is one of the few drains that allows the full diameter of the pipe to be used to move water without air getting trapped as easily.
Amazing video, the quality of the Drone footage and explanation it is top-notch. I work at my local water department in the United States and am always very interested in the subject matter. I was surprised that you only had 700 plus subscribers with the quality of this video. Keep it up
I live literally right down the valley from berryessa and it's absolutely insane what the lake looks like right now. I don't think the gloryhole has seen a drop of water other than rain water in the past five plus years. In fact for the first time in my life I actually saw the foundation and the bottom of the concrete case for the gloryhole as it enters the ground. I've never seen the water that low. The city that is in the middle of the lake basically came above the water. The Old Town bridge broke the water like multiple times over the last couple years. It would take probably two or three rainy seasons where we have nothing but monsoons for the lake to get filled up to the point where the gloryhole is ever needed again. If you want to look at a map of the lake and get an idea of its size. And then imagine that lake about 70 to 80 ft lower than it should be. That's about where it's at right now. Even though we have a lot of impressive mechanical marvels I think that humans are doing nothing but ruining this world.
It's not humans, you numbskull. It's called "climate patterns". If we have a lot of rain, it's blamed on mankind's greed. If we have no rain, it's blamed on mankind's greed. No matter what happens, it's all apparently due to mankind's greed - which can only be solved by the rulership of wise left wing bureaucrats, of course.
@@WhatAHorribleNight small brain go brrrrt lol trust me I've studied enough about climate change. And even though yes climate does change it has not changed this drastically in this quickly in this short amount of time. It's like you read the first paragraph about the research paper talking about that and now saying climate change is a myth. I'd do a sprinkle more research before talking about this again because no it is not just climate changing naturally. Humans are having a massive effect on it. Do you even know what carbon monoxide or greenhouse gases are? And the paper that you're referencing or trying to reference I have read in full. It states that yes climate does change naturally. We have had massive cold fronts and massive swelters of heat. But it's more of a gradual transition. If we were actually on a natural transition to a hotter climate, what's happened in the last maybe 50 years would have been spread out over more of 2 to 300 years. That's the normal trend in cycle. But because humans create gases and toxins that cause heat to be trapped inside of the atmosphere, and cause things like massive droughts that destroy ecosystems, all of this has a huge effect in climate change. I mean with all the trees burning in Europe from it getting hotter do you think that's not adding to it? And do you think all those fires just randomly started? Humans are a plague to planet Earth, or at least the humans that exist right now. Maybe our future generations will figure this out and stop breeding with people that think you're way, but until then this Earth is being slowly burned to a crisp from people with your thinking. You are wrong and before you even respond to me go and read that paper in full. Go and actually try to understand what they're talking about. It's obvious you never tried to read it in full or try to grasp the concepts that they were talking about because if you did it would have been completely obvious to you that humans are a huge factor in climate change. Stop reading titles and actually do research 🤪🤪
its what happens when you stop trying to solve the mysteries of the world and instead start focusing on insanity like whether or not a child should be mutilated because it picked up a girl doll as a boy. i think it is infinitely hilarious that people think we're going to 'explore space' we're going to be reduced down to the lowest common denominator and enslaved by a neoliberal system.
There is a reservoir near where I grew up called Lake Berryessa. It has a plughole very much like this. It used to scare the crap out of me when I was little because it's not at all hard to imagine getting sucked in. The creek that fills and drains Lake Berryessa is quite well known. Officially it's called Prutah Creek, but it is really famous by it's nickname, "Green River." A "Southern Rock" band called Credence Clearwater Revival came out with a song about the creek in 1969. The funny part is, CCR wasn't Southern at all. They came from very near where I grew up, in California. Prutah Creek (AKA Green River) flows through Napa and Yolo Counties in California. One member of CCR grew up in my home town even. My dad remembers going to see them practice and play in some of the local bars in the late 60's just before they had their first hit.
Nice video thanks you. I was cycling around there earlier this year it is a really beautiful area. I was training for an Ironman so I took my wetsuit and was looking for somewhere to go for a long swim - but sadly you weren’t allowed to swim in any of the bodies of water in that area, which is a shame but I guess it’s not safe for folks who are not experienced swimmers, so fair enough.
Pat Dickinson has a great video on this. he explores the outlet pipe & walks up to the base of the plug hole. he works alone, & his video footage & still photography combined with commentary are excellent. he subsequently returns to the site to show the plug hole doing its job during flood levels.
Considering how much redundant security there is all over the world, it is actually impressive that there hasn't been put a small fence around these drains
Much more terrifying is the strid (or whatever its called) a thin section of river in England that has 100% mortality rate if you fall in on account of the massive undercurrent. It also looks completely calm on the surface.
What would be the cost, compared to a traditional spillway? I imagine it would be considerable. Also, a spillway can be maintained and even altered if required. I don’t know there’s much you could do with one of these hell-holes.
It all depends, these have their benefits and their drawbacks. Generally, spillways like these are used when you don't have much width to work with at the dam site but you have plenty of depth
Awesome video! God bless. Always remember that Jesus Christ loves you all so much! Jesus Christ forgives all sins. Jesus Christ is God, King, and Savior!❤️🙏
Walked past this quite a few times, we did ponder this topic. After the 2nd visit a more profound question cropped up - how tf do they mow the grass bank that's like a 45 degree sideways incline?
There is a story of a woman who was sucked down a spillway, her name was Emily Schwalek, 41, the spillway was in the Monticello Dam at Lake Berryessa. She was killed of course. Authorities said witnesses reported seeing Schwalek swimming toward the spillway at about 6:30 p.m. on a Sunday. She fell over 200 feet as that was the depth of the spillway. Witnesses said that she was hanging on to the lip for around 20 minutes while screaming for help. It’s believed that she was trying to hang her feet inside the spillway while holding on to the concrete lip around the edge. It would seem that the pull of the water was stronger than she realized. There may have been heavy flooding coming down from the mountains and the pressure wasn’t so hard when she started. She was ultimately found at the bottom of the damn and she had drown. That is supposedly the only case of any person falling down a spillway. There were many warning signs to discourage the kind of behavior she was doing. She should have listened to the warnings. Those posts in water ways, caves and underwater caves are there for a reason. If you haven’t had the right training, you should stay away from such dangers. You couldn’t get me within a mile of one of those spillways. It doesn’t take a genius to realize the danger. Even just that drone shot over the spillway made my stomach churn, so I know the real thing would scare me to death.
The Fernilee reservoir (Goyt Valley, between Buxton and Whaley Bridge) has a smaller one of these. That one has a walkway round the top of the plughole, and you can stand and look at the water flowing away from you (assuming that access to the walkway is still possible, I last did that back in the seventies -- possibly the health & safety culture has caused them to block it off since). After a few minutes of staring at it, your brain times or the motion so when you look away the whole world looks like it rushes in towards you.
Even if it didn't have a fence around it there would be no fear of that happening at the one at Dovestone reservior at the moment, the water is so low you'd have to climb about 16ft to reach the rim.
