Witton Lakes are a pair of former drinking water reservoirs between the Perry Common and Erdington areas of Birmingham, England (not in nearby Witton).
Two brooks, arising at Kingstanding and Bleak Hill, Erdington, respectively, feed first Witton Lakes, then overspill into Brookvale Park Lake, before reaching the River Tame.
The brooks are natural; the lakes were created at the end of the 19th century to supply drinking water for Birmingham. They were then in the countryside, and the water relatively clean. Industrialisation and urban sprawl led to the water no longer being fit for drinking, so the city turned to the Elan Valley in Wales for a supply.
The lakes are now maintained as a leisure amenity by Birmingham City Council. One is used for model boating and the other nature conservation. The north Birmingham cycle route runs through the surrounding park.
Famous quotes containing the word lakes:
“While the very inhabitants of New England were thus fabling about the country a hundred miles inland, which was a terra incognita to them,... Champlain, the first Governor of Canada,... had already gone to war against the Iroquois in their forest forts, and penetrated to the Great Lakes and wintered there, before a Pilgrim had heard of New England.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)