Water Tower, Boiler House and Railings, Boughton Water Pumping Station

Details

SJ416666NE TARVIN ROAD 1932-1/0/10011 BOUGHTON 17-MAR-06 (North side) Water tower, boiler house and attached railings, Boughton Water Pumping Stat ion

II

Also Known As: Water tower, Boughton Water Pumping Station, SPITAL WALK, BOUGHTON Water tower and pumping station, partly disused. 1851-53, by F L Bateman, consultant engineer to the Chester Waterworks Company. Tower raised 1884 and mid C20. English bond brick with ashlar and tooled sandstone ashlar dressings, some darker brick dressings, and slate roof coverings to pitched roofs. PLAN: Water supply pumping ensemble, comprising circular water tower with attached beam engine house and boiler house, and truncated chimney integral to water tower. Circular plan with single-depth N boiler house. Robust Italianate style. EXTERIOR: Water tower of 3 stages above a basement and with extensions to the upper level. Giant pilasters from a rusticated ashlar basement plinth, with base and capitals to entablature and cornice, with full-height blind, keyed, round-arched panels between; later top section has a moulded band and rectangular blind panels set alternately horizontally and vertically, beneath a C20 further extension. Flat-headed basement doorways and windows, segmental-arched ground- and first-floor windows, and blind round-arched second-floor windows, with 6 over 6-pane sashes. Roof has cast-iron ridge and eaves cornice. Single storey boiler house has double doors facing the canal to the N. INTERIOR: The tower is divided into 6 sections by radiating walls, with a winder stair round the central chimney, to a metal roof. Beam engine house to the north contains original cast-iron entablature with egg and dart moulding, beam floor and other details. HISTORY: The 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, 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, a diesel engine house (q.v.)was added to the complex. Other additions included a Davey horizontal steam engine, site offices and laboratory. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Attached cast-iron railings to side dogleg stair to the north engine house. Forms a group with the diesel pump house of 1913 (q.v.) The complex is of special historic and architectural interest as the central pumping ensemble of the former Chester Waterworks company, completed in 1853 and subsequently altered and enlarged. It comprises water tower, engine and pump houses and boiler house including significant remnants of an early beam engine house and engine housing. As an innovative, ambitious and architecturally-distinguished design by a notable water supply engineer, uniquely combining engine house and chimney, the complex is well-preserved and retains diesel engines and 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

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495662

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LBS

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