Sky Watch: Roughtown

This picturesque scene beneath a nearly blue sky doesn't seem to match the title "Roughtown" but that is the name of the area of Mossley on the hillside. The spire of St John's Church, Roughtown, points skywards, already having a head start as it was built high on the valley side.

The Roughtown area of Mossley was in the West Riding of Yorkshire until 1847.

The water in the foreground, which reflects today's lovely blue sky, looks as if it might be part of a canal, but is in fact a pond that has formed in the old clay workings that were once here. A total of 32,350 cubic metres of clay from these pits was taken by a narrow gauge railway to construct the dam for Chew Valley Reservoir which at over 1500 feet above sea level was, at the time of its construction in 1912, the highest reservoir in England.

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See Bird's Eye View of this location.

Sky Watch is a regular weekly feature on this photo blog. It links with websites all over the world with the general theme each week of looking upwards. Please take the opportunity to visit some of these other sites. I hope some new visitors have found their way here today, watching the skies!