Control Room, Boughton Water Pumping Station

CONTROL ROOM, BOUGHTON WATER PUMPING STATION, TARVIN ROAD

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Overview

Heritage Category:
Listed Building
Grade:
II
List Entry Number:
1391535
Date first listed:
17-Mar-2006
List Entry Name:
Control Room, Boughton Water Pumping Station
Statutory Address:
CONTROL ROOM, BOUGHTON WATER PUMPING STATION, TARVIN ROAD

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:
Listed Building
Grade:
II
List Entry Number:
1391535
Date first listed:
17-Mar-2006
List Entry Name:
Control Room, Boughton Water Pumping Station
Statutory Address 1:
CONTROL ROOM, BOUGHTON WATER PUMPING STATION, TARVIN ROAD

The scope of legal protection for listed buildings

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

The scope of legal protection for listed buildings

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:
CONTROL ROOM, BOUGHTON WATER PUMPING STATION, TARVIN ROAD

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:
Cheshire West and Chester (Unitary Authority)
Parish:
Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:
SJ 41906 66639

Details

SJ416666NE TARVIN ROAD 1932-1/0/10010 BOUGHTON 17-MAR-06 (North side) Control Room, Boughton Water Pumping S tation

GV II

Also Known As: Diesel engine house, Boughton Water Pumping Station, SPITAL WALK, BOUGHTON Former diesel engine house, now control room. 1913, with later alterations. Built for the Chester Waterworks Company. Pale yellow brick with sandstone ashlar plinth and darker brick and ashlar dressings, and slate roof. Italianate style. PLAN: Rectangular building, sited immediately to the south of the water tower with which it was functionally associated. EXTERIOR: Single storey; 4-window gable and 5-window side ranges. Banded ashlar plinth, brick cill and impost band, moulded eaves cornice, and coped pediment gables, round-arched arcades separated by pilaster strips. Doorways in the centre of the side with a round-arched fanlight above, and in the east gable with a moulded surround, and round-arched windows have glazing bars, with a round pane at the top; square ridge lantern has scrolled corner buttresses and a domed top. The east gable pediment contains a dated cartouche, the west gable incorporates a louvred oculus. INTERIOR: The interior walls are finished in glazed tiling. The building retains 2 diesel engines for emergency power generation and electrical pumps, alongside added electrical control equipment. The roof is supported on tensioned metal trusses carrying 5 tiers of purlins. HISTORY: The former diesel engine house and the associated water tower with attached engine house and boiler house forms the most prominent component of the former Tower Works, a river abstraction and water treatment works built for the Chester Waterworks Company in 1851-3. The complex was originally powered by a Cornish beam engine manufactured at Adam Woodward's Queens Foundry, Manchester. The site incorporated 3 sand filters and a brick-vaulted reservoir. The water tower was heightened from 70 to 84 feet in 1884 by jacking up the tank. In 1913, the diesel engine house was added to the complex. Other additions included a Davey horizontal steam engine, site offices and laboratory. Forms a group with the water tower, boiler house and attached railings.(q.v.)

The former diesel engine house is of special historic and architectural interest as a key component of the former Chester Waterworks Company's Tower Works, developed in 1853 and subsequently altered and enlarged. Tower Works was innovative, ambitious and architecturally-distinguished design by a notable water supply engineer, and is well-preserved. The diesel engine house, added in 1913, sits alongside the 1853 water tower, engine and boiler house, with significant remnants of an early beam engine house and engine housing surviving alongside two C20 deisel engines and associated pumps. Ensembles such as this were at the heart of the newly-developed water supply systems of the C19, systems which significantly improved public health and enhanced the lives of millions by providing reliable supplies of clean drinking water.

SJ4190466638

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:
495661
Legacy System:
LBS

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.

Ordnance survey map of Control Room, Boughton Water Pumping Station

Map

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End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

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