Haverah Park - Navvies

[behindthefrogs]

In 1901 Elizabeth Higgs was a widow living in Haverah Park with daughter Fanny and two grandchildren who I assume were illegitimate despite Fanny being shown as daughter in law in the census.

Boarding with them are thirteen men aged between 35 and 70 from all over the country and each described as "excavator navvy"

Does anyone have any ideas what they might have been excavating.

David

[PaulineJ]

Where is "Haverah Park"?

Pauline

[behindthefrogs]

It is a few miles outside Harrogate.  The main house is now a scientific research establishment.

David

[PaulineJ]

It is a few miles outside Harrogate.  The main house is now a scientific research establishment.

David

Multimap.com doesn't show it, nor does old-maps.co.uk.
Whatever they were building would have been in walking distance, can you be any more exact?
Grid ref, postcode for example.

Pauline

[SooCatt]

I Googled Haverah Park and quite a lot came up because of the research site.  There are three reservoirs very near so they may have been excavating one of them.

 

[behindthefrogs]

The postcode of the farmhouse in the park is HG3 1SQ.

I think that James Higgs who was probably a Navvy as well died there in late 1900.  It thus seems that they were working on whatever it was for a number of months.  They were in Leicester a year earlier and Nottingham two years before that.

David

[behindthefrogs]

Thanks Soocat

I can't find any history of the reservoirs beyond the fact that two of them supplied the Victorian Pump Rooms in Harrogate.

There seem to be about six reservoirs in the area!  If wanted to walk round them or watch birds there is a huge amount of detail available.

David

[behindthefrogs]

I have  eliminated Swinsty reservoir completed 1876, Fewston completed 1879, Beaver Dyke and John O'Gaunt's completed 1890.  I also found out that all the reservoirs in Haverah Park area were completed around the turn of the century.

This I think leaves me with "Ten Acre Reservoir" for which I can find no dates.

David