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The Rez was formerly a Severn Trent Water Authority Reservoir, which
was an open water facility in the mid 1800’s. There
were two large pump houses on-site which house the steam beam engines
that pumped the water from the bottom of the valley where the Rez is
situated to the towns and villages of Stoke- on Trent. With
the progression to electric pumps, one pump house was demolished and a
smaller building constructed in its place and the remaining large pump
house was reduced by one storey. The chimney that used to
tower a further sixty feet above the two buildings was demolished and
buried in the bank-sides around the site.
The reservoir was given baffled walls made of
engineering brick and a series of supporting columns throughout to
support a new reinforced concrete roof. What is now the Dive
House was the Gas House, where the chlorine and other water
purification mixtures were added and the water quality monitored.
The buoyancy tank was the aeration tank for the reservoir.
The two bottom layers have been removed and a fountain restored.
The water in the Rez is fresh water as the whole of Wall Grange is a
clean water site due its environmentally sensitive location.
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