On Saturday last the King, accompanied by the Queen,opened the
new reservoir built by the Metropolitan Water Board at Chingford. Starting from Buckingham Palace at 2 p.m., the Royal party drove fourteen miles through Whitechapel and West Ham to Leytonstone, proceeding thence by motor care to the reservoir. They received a very hearty welcome in the East End, and loyal addresses were presented by the Lord Mayor, and the mayors of West Ham, Stepney, Hackney, and ether municipal bodies. By far the most interesting of the addresses, however, was that presented by Mr. Barnard, chairman of the Water Board, in which he recalled the fact that exactly three hundred years ago King James I. enabled the water of the Lea to be brought by the New River to London, and dwelt on the coincidence that in the tercentenary year of that event the King and Queen should be inaugurating the last and greatest of the reservoirs constructed in the Lea valley. The capacity of the reservoir, which has been built by Mr. W. Booth Bryan, is 3,000,000,000 gallons, the area occupies 500 acres, and the length of the embankment is 41 miles. The installation of Humphrey pumps, each of which is a gas engine and pump combined, blowing the water up into the reservoir by series of explosions, delivers 180,000,000 gallons daily.
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