5. c. cxix), giving Manchester Corporation permission to build the reservoir to supply drinking water to the city.

The decision caused a public outcry because the farming villages of Measand and Mardale Green would be flooded and the valley altered forever.

At the time of construction, its design was considered to be at the forefront of civil engineering technology because it was the world's first hollow buttress dam.

The village church was dismantled and the stone used in constructing the dam; all the bodies in the churchyard were exhumed and re-buried at Shap.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) first became involved at Haweswater because of the presence of golden eagles – the first to return to England in over 170 years.

[7][8] The aim is to combine the improvement of wildlife habitats and water quality, with running a viable sheep farm.

Moorland and woodland habitats are being improved for birds as well as the rare small mountain ringlet butterfly.

Measures include grip blocking, where the water level of drainage ditches is raised to encourage re-vegetation and reduce erosion, heather replanting, and juniper woodland planting (especially in the ghylls).

[9] Lake District writer and fell walker Alfred Wainwright had this to say on the construction of the Haweswater Dam in his 1955 book A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells: If we can accept as absolutely necessary the conversion of Haweswater [to a reservoir], then it must be conceded that Manchester have done the job as unobtrusively as possible.

[10]Haweswater is a 2002 novel by British writer Sarah Hall, set in Mardale at the time of the building of the dam and flooding of the valley.