Constructed by the East London Water Works from 1867 to 1869, around the same time they were laying out Mr. Bazelgette's sewer system, as well as the Underground Metro System (which helped people live away from the centre of London, thus ending overcrowding and slums). The Victorians were looking to sort out the sanitation of London. The reservoir was set up to provide drinking water for the people of the area. A number of these underground reservoirs exist throughout London, including Hornsey Lane, High Beech, Mount View Road, Highgate etc. The largest of all being Honor Oak covered Reservoir which holds 58million Imperial gallons, and is the largest brick reservoir in the world. Hornsey Wood reservoir is fed by a 19mile 36" pipe from the Thames Water works at Hanworth. The reservoir holds 5,000,000 Imperial gallons and as well as being connected to the Thames Water works at Hanworth, it's also connected to the Lea Bridge works. It is currently empty due to engineers finding structural failures. The area of the park above it is currently fenced off.

Word had filtered around the exploring community from an explorer who spotted a mention of it in a local newspaper, announcing it was closed off for repairs. I went with Tom Zero, who was his normal elusive self when we met up, and I didn't bring my camera. This shot was light painted by me with his better Canon 5Diii camera.

I returned with Alex Residues, who was suffering from torch issues, so had brought along tealights instead. While he set them up, I went about taking some light painted shots. This was looking along one half of the width of the reservoir. I think I counted 13 arches wide. The water was the same level throughout, a few centimetres.

The outflow point. The larger vertical pipe acts as an overflow, so the water level will only reach that height. The lower horizontal pipe is for draining the reservoir.

Another overflow pipe, I only saw two down here.

It was hard to resist playing with the different vistas down here, caused by all the arches. This is looking diagonally through them.

And again here.

Residues finally finished setting and lighting the place up, and took his pictures on film, which will no doubt be his normal amazing shots. I then took a shot of my own before we both packed up our gear.

All done, it was time to head up the steps and out into the darkness of the empty park above. The different colours at the top of the steps and at the top of the arches show the upper limit of the water in here. Maintained by the overflow pipes mentioned above.

Thanks to Zero and others for intel, and Residues for appropriate lighting skills for a Victorian reservoir!