Abberton Reservoir

Abberton Reservoir is a pumped storage freshwater reservoir in eastern England near the Essex coast, with an area of 700 hectares. Most of its water is pumped from the River Stour. It is the largest body of freshwater in Essex.

Constructed between 1935 and 1939, Abberton Reservoir is owned and managed by Essex and Suffolk Water, part of Northumbrian Water Group, and lies 6 km south-west of Colchester near the village of Layer de la Haye. In World War II, the reservoir was mined to deter invading seaplanes, and it was used by the RAF's No. 617 Squadron for practice runs for the bombing of the German dams in the Ruhr. A project to increase the capacity of Abberton Reservoir to 41,000 megalitres by raising its bank height was completed in 2013, along with a new link to transfer water from Norfolk's River Ouse to the Stour.