Cogan : Water Reservoir

Prior to the rapid increase in trade that came from the opening of the West Bute Dock in 1839 and the construction of the Taff Valley Railway which feed that dock, Cardiff was small enough still to rely on getting its water from wells, springs and the River Taff. However, with the booming trade and ever-increasing population, it soon became clear that something more concrete had to be done about Cardiff’s water supply. 

The Cardiff Waterworks Act of 1850 was a good start but quickly proved inadequate. A second Act in June 1853 improved the local water situation, but it was a further Act, in 1860, that provided for the most extensive programme of works to service Cardiff’s water requirements. And it was that 1860 Act that led to the construction of the service reservoir at Cogan, the ruins of which I passed on my walk today.

As the 1905 article 'The Corporation Waterworks undertaking'* explains,

The scheme propounded by the Act of 1860, included a storeage reservoir and filter beds at Lisvane with a catchment area of 2,200 acres, including the waters of the Llanishen, Nant Mawr, Nant Draw, Nant Felin and Nant Dulas. Intakes were constructed on these streams and the water conveyed therefrom in lines of conduit to the storage reservoir.

The following additional works were constructed, viz:— A low level service reservoir at Cogan, and a high level service reservoir at Llandough, situate 170 feet above the level of Cogan Reservoir, with pumping engines at the latter place for forcing the water up to Llandough Reservoir, from whence it could flow by gravitation to and for the supply of Penarth.

That same article states that, in 1904, the Cogan reservoir had a top water area of 1 rood 32 perches and a capacity of 2 million gallons. That’s a lot of water! And it seems the water was high quality, as I discovered in a news report, entitled ‘The Corporation and the Waterworks’, in the South Wales Echo of 13 August 1881:

When I say that the Corporation held their annual outing in connection with the Cardiff Waterworks on Tuesday, I do not mean to say that they did so solely for their own pleasure, or for their own private profit. The object of the vehicular and processional journey from the Town Hall to the various reservoirs in the Cardiff system of waterworks, was to enable the Councillors to make inquiries at every point, and to taste the water and if they tasted anything else on the road, why that was purely incidental, and nothing to nobody.
I must say that although the weather was fine, and the social qualities of the members of the Corporation from the Mayor downwards, rendered the day exceedingly agreeable, the ratepayers' representatives had a keen eye to business, and the way in which the machinery at the reservoirs was examined, showed that some of them were sound practical men.
It is true that if they looked into the reservoirs for mud or fish, they found none, and it is quite true that the assistant engineer made a perpendicular descent into the Cogan reservoir, to produce a glass of sparkling water. It is quite true that the Mayor tasted this sample and said it was good. It is quite true also several gentlemen were near who boldly affirmed that it would not be improved upon, even if whiskey was added. Well, if opinions were divided in regard to this question that did not matter. The meeting affected a teetotal subject, solely – water.

When I passed the overgrown fence and dilapidated building shown in my photos during today’s walk, I was intrigued to find out more. It turns out that the building is the former caretaker’s cottage and, further down the sloping site, there is another stone building, the disused pump house. I haven’t been able to discover when the reservoir went out of use but the entire site – of just under 2 acres (that includes the empty reservoir) – was put out to tender, for a potential housing development, at an estimated asking price of £500,000, in June 2017. Obviously, no development has yet taken place but I would not be at all surprised if it was still on the cards.  

* 'The Corporation Waterworks undertaking', in Cardiff Records: Volume 5, ed. John Hobson Matthews (Cardiff, 1905), pp. 457-469. British History Online, https://www.british-history.ac.uk/cardiff-records/vol5/pp457-469 [accessed 2 February 2020].