the volume of water needed by the rapidly expanding towns of Newcastle and Gateshead, it decided to build a second reservoir at Hallington and two at Swinburn. By the time a bill was placed before Parliament in February 1876, there were three reservoirs at Swinburn. The bill was opposed by both Newcastle and Gateshead Corporations, although their objections were eventually withdrawn, and by John Gifford Riddell, on whose land the Swinburn reservoirs would be built. Lower Swinburn reservoir was deleted in the committee stage of the bill, which became an Act of Parliament in July 1976. The company obtained a second Act in 1877, to authorise alterations to the Swinburn scheme, and at the same time extended the time allowed to build West Hallington reservoir. Land was bought in 1880, but construction did not start until Colt Crag reservoir, the revised Upper Swinburn reservoir, was completed. John Forster, the resident engineer, was paid an additional £100 per year to supervise and direct the works, which began in 1884. A source of stone was located near to Colt Crag reservoir, and a narrow gauge railway was built to transport it to the site. Clay was obtained from the site for the embankments, and bricks were made from book-leaf marl. This covered the area, and would subsequently be the cause of problems with the embankments. The company employed direct labour to build the reservoir, and some 60 navvies were engaged in this task. They used waggons and a hauling engine to move the material. Forster found that using manual labour was more cost-effective than using steam navvies. Work on the reservoir was suspended in early 1886 and early 1887, due to appalling weather conditions, and there were regular slippages in the embankments. The slope of the embankments was reduced, from 1 in 2 to 1 in 2.5, but a knowledge of soil mechanics was clearly lacking. Water was also a problem, and a spring which produced per day was discovered under one of the embankments in 1877. The reservoir started to fill in May 1889, although various tasks were still to be completed. In six years, some of earth had been moved, 33,000 waggons of stone had been transported along the railway, and 670,000 bricks had been manufactured and laid. The work had cost considerably more than the £40,000 that Forster had estimated. Labour along had cost £51,631, of which £23,557 was