In 1863, a pamphlet urged that Thirlmere and  Haweswater should be made reservoirs, and their water conveyed (via Ullswater (used as a distributing reservoir)) 240 miles to London to supply it with two hundred million gallons a day of clean water; the cost of the project was put at ten million pounds.
The scheme was considered by a Royal Commission on Water Supply chaired by the Duke of Richmond, but its report of 1869 dismissed such long-distance schemes, preferring to supply London by pumping from aquifers and abstraction from the Thames.
 The scheme continued to be proposed; by 1876, it had grown to include a branch feeder from Bala Lake and the cost had risen accordingly to £m 13.5; however nothing ever came of it.


The original scope specified for the Duke of Richmond's Royal Commission had been the water supply of London and other large cities, but the Commission had found itself fully occupied by consideration of the metropolitan water supply.
For water supply elsewhere, its report had merely made general recommendations: 
... that no town or district should be allowed to appropriate a source of supply which naturally and geographically belongs to a town or district nearer to such source, unless under special circumstances which justify the appropriation.

That when any town or district is supplied by a line or conduit from a distance, provision ought to be made for the supply of all places along such lines.


That on the introduction of any provincial water bill into Parliament, attention should be drawn to the practicability of making the measure applicable to as extensive a district as possible, and not merely to the particular town.
In 1863, a pamphlet urged that Thirlmere and  Haweswater should be made reservoirs, and their water conveyed (via Ullswater (used as a distributing reservoir)) 240 miles to London to supply it with two hundred million gallons a day of clean water; the cost of the project was put at ten million pounds. The scheme was considered by a Royal Commission on Water Supply chaired by the Duke of Richmond, but its report of 1869 dismissed such long-distance schemes, preferring to supply London by pumping from aquifers and abstraction from the Thames.  The scheme continued to be proposed; by 1876, it had grown to include a branch feeder from Bala Lake and the cost had risen accordingly to £m 13.5; however nothing ever came of it.

The original scope specified for the Duke of Richmond's Royal Commission had been the water supply of London and other large cities, but the Commission had found itself fully occupied by consideration of the metropolitan water supply. For water supply elsewhere, its report had merely made general recommendations: 
... that no town or district should be allowed to appropriate a source of supply which naturally and geographically belongs to a town or district nearer to such source, unless under special circumstances which justify the appropriation. 
That when any town or district is supplied by a line or conduit from a distance, provision ought to be made for the supply of all places along such lines. 

That on the introduction of any provincial water bill into Parliament, attention should be drawn to the practicability of making the measure applicable to as extensive a district as possible, and not merely to the particular town.
Thirlmere