Baitings Dam: Low water levels at Yorkshire reservoir expose ancient packhorse bridge submerged since the 1950s

The drought has had a significant impact on the Yorkshire Water-owned site near Ripponden, which was built in 1956 to supply Wakefield with water.

The reservoir, also known as Baitings Dam, is named after a hamlet with Norse origins that was flooded during the 20-year consruction project.

The village was on an old packhorse route through the Pennines that linked Yorkshire and Lancashire, and the centuries-old bridge has been exposed by this year's dry summer. A modern bridge was built to replace it.

The sunken village has a gruesome history. In 1989, the body of a man with a gunshot wound to the head was found on the reservoir bed during a drought, weighted down with a pickaxe.

He was identified as 23-year-old Laurence Winstanley, who was last seen leaving a pub in Oldham the previous year. His body was only exposed because the water level was 12 metres lower than normal.

The murder has never been solved.