• Kielder - a corruption of Calder, keldd ea - gushing stream or spring.

Kielder Village is a small settlement in North Tynedale, Northumberland, England. Located at the head of Kielder Water and in the north west of Kielder Forest, the village is 3 miles (5 km) from the Scottish border.

Early settlement around Kielder Castle, a hunting lodge built by the Duke of Northumberland in 1775. Previous settlements were expanded in the 1950s by the Forestry Commission who constructed housing to accommodate the workers employed in the planting of Kielder Forest. Most of this housing has now been sold back to the private sector.Kielder Water is a large man-made reservoir in Northumberland in North East England. It is the largest artificial lake in the United Kingdom by capacity and it is surrounded by Kielder Forest, the largest man-made woodland in Europe. It was planned in the late 1960s to satisfy an expected rise in demand for water to support a booming UK industrial economy. It was constructed between 1975 and 1981 by an AMEC/Balfour Beatty joint venture and was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1982. It took two years for the valley to fill with water completely once construction was completed.

The decline of traditional heavy industry, together with more water-efficient industrial processes and better control of water supply leakage, served to undermine the original justification for the reservoir and many came to criticise the government-funded project as a white elephant. In recent years, however, Kielder Water has come into its own, with underground springs ensuring that it always remains at high levels, regardless of the prevailing climate condition. This means that while the south of England is often forced to implement drought strategies and hosepipe bans, north east England enjoys plentiful water supplies.

The main conurbations served by the reservoir are Tyneside, Wearside and Teesside. The reservoir is linked to the exit point of the Derwent Reservoir in County Durham, with a pipeline fed from the North Tyne river below the Kielder dam. The Derwent Reservoir remains the primary source of water for Tyne and Wear, so water from Kielder can be used to supplement the flow of the River Derwent when the reservoir above is at low levels, and also to provide water into the Derwent Reservoir's distribution system. The Kielder pipeline cannot be used to supplement the water supply to the Derwent Reservoir itself. With water shortages in southern Britain apparently worsening by the year, some opinions, especially the privatised water companies, favour the building of further reservoirs of this size. Opposing arguments favour better water-resource management, improved conservation measures, control of leakage and changes in social attitudes to the use of water to manage the apparent shortfall.

Kielder Water is owned by Northumbrian Water, and holds 200 billion litres (44 billion gallons, or 0.2 cubic km), making it the largest reservoir in the UK by capacity (Rutland Water is the largest by surface area). Kielder Water has a 27.5-mile (44.3 km) shoreline.

It is also one of the region's major tourist venues, attracting over a quarter of a million visitors a year who come to enjoy the wide range of leisure opportunities on offer. There are two main visitor centres at Kielder Water—Leaplish waterside park and Tower Knowe visitor centre—and other facilities at Kielder, Falstone and Stannersburn villages.

Kielder Water is also the site of England's largest hydro electric plant. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 26 May 1982 and is owned by Northumbrian Water. In December 2005, RWE npower renewables bought the rights to operate the plant and sell the electricity generated by it, with a contract lasting until 2025. Following the takeover, the turbines were refurbished in a period 2005-2006, which increased the efficiency of the electricity generation. Controls were also updated, meaning that the plant can be operated from Dolgarrog in Wales.

The plant generates electricity using dual turbines which produce 6 megawatts (MW) of electricity. It also uses a 5.5 MW Kaplan turbine, which generates electricity when water release takes place. A 500 kilowatt (kW) Francis turbine also generates constantly from the compensation flow of water from the reservoir into the North Tyne. This gives the reservoir a total generating capacity of 12 MW, and an average production of 20,000 MWh of electricity per year, a saving of 8,600 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year compared to fossil fuel based methods of generation.

The forest is owned and managed by the United Kingdom Forestry Commission, which initiated the first plantings in the 1920s. During the 1930s, the Ministry of Labour supplied men from among the ranks of the unemployed. Many came from the mining communities and shipyards of North East England. They were housed in one of a number of instructional centres created by the Ministry, most of them on Forestry Commission property; by 1938, the Ministry had 38 Instructional Centres across Britain. The hutted camp in Kielder is now under Kielder Water. Numerous purpose-built villages were also constructed for workers' families, including Stonehaugh.

Prior to the 1920s, the land was predominantly open moorland, managed for grouse shooting and sheep grazing with remnants of native upland woodland existing along stream sides and in isolated craggy areas. The Forestry Commission, funded from the public purse, purchased land across the country with the brief of establishing a strategic reserve of timber for the nation. This single objective held sway until the 1960s. Since that time, management principles have changed in order to reflect rising awareness of environmental needs and to provide recreational facilities whilst seeking to maintain a sustainable supply of timber. Kielder today remains state-owned and its development from a single-objective plantation to a multi-purpose forest mirrors the development of plantation forestry across the United Kingdom.

The name 'Kielder Forest' is often also applied to the area of hills and remote moorland that surround the forestry plantations. The group of hills merges into the Cheviots to the north-east but is generally well-defined on other sides. It reaches a maximum height of 602 m at Peel Fell and also contains the Marilyns of Sighty Crag and Larriston Fells. These hills, despite not being very high, are particularly remote owing to the scarcity of settlement in the region. Indeed, Sighty Crag is the furthest hill in England from a road.

Kielder is dominated by conifers. Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis) covers 75% of the planted area; this species thrives in the damp conditions afforded by northern Britain. Other species include Norway Spruce (Picea abies) and Lodgepole Pine (Pinus contorta), which cover 9% of the area each. The remainder is made up of Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris), larch (Larix spp.), Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), and broadleaves including birch (Betula spp.), Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia), cherry (Prunus spp.), oak (Quercus spp.), Beech (Fagus sylvatica), and willow (Salix spp.).

475,000 cubic metres of timber is harvested annually to supply local sawmilling, chipboard, pulp and wood fuel customers. Most of this volume comes from clearfelling areas; an increasing percentage however is sourced from stands harvested under continuous cover silviculture systems. Clear felled areas are replanted with a mix of coniferous and broadleaf tree species, opportunities are also taken to increase the proportion of open space and to improved the riparian habitat. As with all Forestry Commission woodlands timber is independently certified under the Forest Stewardship Council scheme.