It is north-east of the village of Swithland from which it takes its name, north-west of Rothley and approximately 133 metres (145 yd) south-west of Mountsorrel Quarry.

[1][2] Leicester's rapidly growing population in the latter half of the 19th century required the construction of a series of reservoirs.

At its outflow it is known as Buddon Brook, and flows north and then west for 2 km (1.4 mi) before joining the River Soar.

[15] In the Domesday Book of 1086 the whole of the Charnwood area was recorded as uninhabited and uncultivated 'waste', extending in the east almost to the River Soar.

[16] Neither Quorn nor Swithland receive an entry, and the Buddon brook valley, along with much of eastern Charnwood, fell within the Manor of Barrow.

Substantial banks and ditches enclosed an area intended to preserve deer for hunting, and would also have provided timber and other resources of a medieval manor.

[21] The Erdington line died out in 1467, and having reverted to the crown was added to William Hastings' vast Leicestershire land holdings until his execution in 1483.

The manor of Barrow remained with the Hastings family until 1840, but much of the individual land holdings were sold off piecemeal, and it was only in the 18th century that Buddon Wood returned to a single owner when Joseph Danvers was able to consolidate the various parts.

Substantial sections of the park pale still form the Rothley-Quorn parish boundary and similarly set the Woodhouse-Quorn border until recent rationalisations moved it to the railway line.

The line opened in 1899 and was closed down in the Beeching cuts of the 1960s, but almost immediately a campaign began to re-open the north Leicestershire section, resulting in a return to trains running between Leicester and Loughborough.

As the SSSI citation puts it, if its mysteries could be solved, it 'would provide a key to unravelling the deep crustal structure of Southern Britain about which so little is known at the moment'.

[34] The open water is a particularly important roosting and feeding area for large number of waterbirds in winter,[31] and as a stopping off point for migrant species passing through.

[36] In 1926 the reservoir was the scene of the suicide of local man Albert Edwin Pepper, who drowned himself by entering the water with a stone weighing 40-60 lbs tied to his waist.

[37] Two viaducts were constructed over the reservoir as part of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway's London Extension, crossing via Brazil Island.