Drift Reservoir
reservoir in Cornwall, UK
Drift Reservoir (Cornish: Kreun an Drev, meaning reservoir of the farmstead) is a reservoir in Cornwall, England, UK, just north of the village of Drift and west of Penzance. The reservoir is 1,200 yards (1,100 m) long and covers 65 acres (26 ha). The dam is at the southern end of the reservoir, and the northern end, splits into north-western and north-eastern shallow arms. It is currently managed, jointly by the South West Lakes Trust and South West Water. There is public access to the dam and parking area only.
History
The reservoir was first given statutory approval in 1938 (under the Penzance Corporation Act 1938) but construction was deferred until after World War II. A joint water scheme was agreed by the Penzance and St Ives Borough Councils to provide water for the Land's End peninsula in 1951 and work finally commenced on 1 March 1959 by Robert Alpine and Sons. The original design had to be amended during excavations when rotting granite was found. It was completed for the West Cornwall Water Board in 1961. It is still the principal source of water for the Penwith area.
The valley of Trewidden Vean, now known as the Lost Valley, was evacuated starting in 1938, with the last family leaving in 1961.
“Drift Reservoir” enters the record as reservoir in Cornwall, UK. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Drift, Reservoir and reservoir can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5307444. Authority coordinates are 50.108, -5.591. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1938, 1951, 1959 and 1961.
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This entry incorporates text from “Drift Reservoir” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.