Geograph - photograph every grid square

The photograph was taken from NS4477 : The summit of the Doughnot Hill. The reservoir was built in the late nineteenth century; it is shown on the 1:10560 OS map of 1899, but not on the equivalent map from 1864.

An Act of Parliament, in 1857 (see Link and NS4176 : Garshake Water Works), empowered Dumbarton's Town Council to abstract water from the Overtoun Burn, for the town's water supply. As described in the second volume of Joseph Irving's "The Book of Dumbartonshire" (1879), "the first reservoir at Garshake was large enough to contain 14,000,000 gallons ... greatly in excess of the then average consumption of about 200,000 gallons a day" (see NS4276 : Garshake Reservoir).

However, "the population increased so rapidly that in 1870 the Town Council felt themselves called upon to look out for new storage ground and new sources of supply". A further Act of Parliament, passed in that year, resulted in the Black Linn scheme, which led to the building of this reservoir.

The Black Linn, the waterfall that gave the reservoir its name, is shown on the 1864 map, and is located only a short distance from the western side of the reservoir; see Link for photographs of the falls.