Following the closure of the railway line in the early 60’s the Lake began a period of decline in popularity and little or no investment was forthcoming to improve the public facilities. Several lakeside properties were in a derelict condition; many having being built in the early 1900’s following the sale of Cliffe Park Estate, by...
With the opening of The Visitor’s Centre in 2001 Rudyard Lake received much positive press coverage and relatively local people from places such as Congleton and Macclesfield “rediscovered” the Lake on their doorstep, a place which previously had something of a run down reputation and which many hadn’t bothered to visit for several years. With...
The Rudyard Lake Trust (founded in 1996) has as one of it’s key Objectives ‘to educate the visitors to the area’. The temporary facilities which were ‘inherited’ consisted of portable cabins to accommodate not only a Visitor’s Centre but the Ranger’s office and shop along with another unit which was a toilet block which stood...
With the arrival of the North Staffs Railway in 1849 the Directors saw the great potential for Rudyard to become a tourist destination. They invested very heavily in Rudyard, building two stations and purchasing the bailiff’s house and converting it in to a hotel which we still know today as The Hotel Rudyard, originally owned and managed by...
Rudyard reservoir was the fourth reservoir constructed by the Trent and Mersey Canal Company to provide water at the summit of the Caldon branch of the Trent and Mersey canal. Construction of the dam was started in 1797 with John Rennie as consultant and was completed in 1800. A branch canal to Leek from the existing...
There are several Victorian boathouses on the banks of the lake, most of which have been modified over the years. The Earl of Macclesfield Boathouse was built in the 1850’s for the Earl’s use and is the oldest boathouse on the lake. The interior originally consisted of a small room with windows overlooking both the...
For its first fifty or so years the reservoir must have been a tranquil place with perhaps just a few local landowners and a small number of people walking to the lake from local villages and towns. With the arrival of the North Staffs Railway in 1849 the future of Rudyard reservoir was changed since the...
Before the Reservoir The village of Rudyard as we know it today is largely the result of the creation, at the end of the 18th century, of a reservoir in the valley drained by the Dunsmore Brook, to supply the Caldon Canal. Before this time Rodehyerd, or Rudierd as it was known, consisted of scattered...
This is a small sample of some of the many postcards of Rudyard Lake and its surroundings. Many date from the early 20th Century. Some have been hand coloured.
