01/11/2026
How Rutland Water began… just 4 miles away from us. Have you visited? 📍🗺️
This huge lake was farmland in 1962. On this 1962 Ordnance Survey map, the River Gwash winds through fields below Upper Hambleton, with the hamlets of Middle and Nether Hambleton beside it. In the 1970s the valley was dammed near Empingham, and the reservoir was completed in 1975. Nether Hambleton and most of Middle Hambleton were demolished, and Normanton Church was only saved by filling its lower half with rubble and building an embankment round it. Today Rutland Water is the UK's largest reservoir by surface area, and Hambleton sits on a peninsula. Have you walked or cycled round it?
