This was Ponden Reservoir under construction in the early 1870s, showing the puddle trench forming a vital preliminary for its 220 yard embankment, which would need to hold back 212,500,000 gallons of water.

The Ponden puddle trench had to be dug to a depth of 67 feet before striking a firm base.

The navvies who built our local reservoirs came from all corners of the British Isles and were traditionally fond of beef, bacon and strong liquor. With the Keighley Waterworks at Ponden and Watersheddles under construction at the same time as Bradford’s at Leeming and Leeshaw, the stage was set for a rip-roaring era involving out-of-hours drinking and illicit stills, as navvies crowded into lodgings or gathered in temporary hutted communities.

Their work was hard and dangerous. Greenwood Hird, in the bottom of this puddle trench shovelling rubble into trucks being hoisted to the surface by horse and pulley, was killed when a stone fell on his head.

James Doyle died after being hit by a length of timber.

A fall of earth crushed William Sunderland at Leeming and Enoch Holmes slipped off the crossing planks at Leeshaw.

Such were the problems besetting Ponden Reservoir that the original contract of one year and nine months had to be extended to more than five years.